Conceptual Challenges Exhibited by Naı̈ve Undergraduate Students in the Context of Atomic Orbital Energy Diagrams
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Matthew R. Dorris [1] ; Martina A. Rau [1]
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[1] University of Wisconsin─Madison, United States
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- Localización: Journal of chemical education, ISSN 0021-9584, Vol. 99, Nº 8, 2022, págs. 2777-2786
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
While visual representations are generally thought to help students learn chemistry, they can pose conceptual challenges. Arrows are a common visual feature used prominently across various visuals, such as energy diagrams. Although energy diagrams are widely used, research on what challenges arise in the context of energy diagrams is limited. To address this gap, the authors conducted interviews with 121 undergraduate students after they received instruction on atomic orbital energy diagrams. The interviews included two questions that served to get a broad sense of students’ understanding of AOEDs and two questions that specifically focused on students’ understanding of arrows that denote electrons. Students exhibited challenges in understanding electron motion by falsely assuming that electrons consistently follow a patterned motion. Further, students faced challenges understanding the energy of electron spin states and attractive and repulsive forces. These findings illustrate the need to investigate challenges that arise from implied meaning of various visual features of energy diagrams, which is key to developing instruction that helps students overcome challenges that arise in the context of energy diagrams.
