Meaningful understanding of chemistry, among others, includes the ability of an individual to think simultaneously at macroscopic, submicroscopic and symbolic levels, and this presupposes the competence to translate between different types of chemical representations. In this study, we investigated 11th grade Greek students' and 3rd year…

We present two studies that investigated the adoption of visual/spatial and analytic strategies by individuals at different levels of expertise in the area of organic chemistry, using the Visual Analytic Chemistry Task (VACT). The VACT allows the direct detection of analytic strategy use without drawing inferences about underlying mental…

The purpose of this study was dual: First, to develop and validate assessment schemes for assessing 11th grade students' meaningful understanding of organic chemistry concepts, as well as their systems thinking skills in the domain. Second, to explore the relationship between the two constructs of interest based on students' performance…

The study of Chemistry deals essentially with three types of chemical representations: macro, submicro, and symbolic. Research has consistently shown that students experience difficulties in understanding and interpreting the representations, in making translations between different types of representations, and in constructing them. In this…

The students' performance in various types of problems dealing with the conservation of matter during chemical reactions has been investigated at different levels of schooling. The participants were 499 ninth grade (ages 14, 15 years) and 624 eleventh grade (ages 16, 17 years) Greek students. Data was collected using a written questionnaire…