Mental model in learning chemical bonding: a preliminary study

Chemical bonding is one of the subjects that involves the use of models, varying from simple ones to sophisticated abstract models possessing considerable mathematical complexity. It is a topic that students commonly find to be problematic, developing a wide range of alternative conceptions. The fac...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Abd. Halim, Noor Dayana, Ali, Mohamad Bilal, Yahaya, Noraffandy, Mohamad Said, Mohd. Nihra Haruzuan
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier BV 2013
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Online Access:http://eprints.utm.my/40708/
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Summary:Chemical bonding is one of the subjects that involves the use of models, varying from simple ones to sophisticated abstract models possessing considerable mathematical complexity. It is a topic that students commonly find to be problematic, developing a wide range of alternative conceptions. The fact is that students cannot see how the atoms or elementary particles are held together, and how they interact and bond together to form a compound. Student’ misconceptions regarding these chemical bonding concepts begin when they live and operate in a macroscopic world and do not easily follow the shifts between macroscopic and microscopic levels. As a result, they tend to build a non-scientific mental model, which means that the idea is not aligned with scientific concepts. Therefore a preliminary study was conducted in order to investigate students’ mental model in this topic.