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This work seeks to solve one of the basic problems in chemistry learning: understanding the chemical bond as a dynamic equilibrium between attractive and repulsive forces. This force-based model is difficult to grasp, as there are no analogues from everyday life for both attractions and repulsions happening simultaneously. In addition, current teaching approaches often mislead by using mainly the ‘octet rule’ heuristic. As a result, students construct naïve models of the chemical bond, usually viewing atoms as solid balls that are attached to each other in order to “achieve an octet.” To represent the force-based dynamics of the bond, we designed the ELI-Chem learning environment. This environment enables interaction as an atom with another atom while observing the underlying forces and the potential energy curve. Our theoretical framework is based on Embodied Learning theory by relating conceptual learning to bodily experiences. The study uses qualitative and quantitative methods with 21 high school chemistry students in a pretest–intervention–posttest design. During a 40 minute activity with the ELI-Chem simulation, students were prompted to discover the underlying forces of bonding and relate them to energy changes. Findings show that learning with the ELI-Chem simulation supports students in gaining the knowledge elements that are required to build the dynamic force-based mental model of chemical bonding, and to conceptualize chemical energy as due to forces. Finally, the design principles of the ELI-Chem environment are discussed. Aligned with science standards, attending to students’ difficulties, and using the advantages of a computer simulation, the ELI-Chem environment provides an appropriate representation of chemical bonding, which is more valid scientifically yet makes the abstract concept accessible.

This article concerns a lacuna in chemistry students' reasoning about chemical bonding. Although chemistry students are familiar with the charges that make up the atom––both positive and negative––they refer only to the attraction between unlike charges. Specifically, they ignore the repulsion between the positive nuclei. We named this disregard of repulsion the lacuna of repulsion. Repulsion is a crucial component in the force‐based explanation of chemical bonding, presenting the bond as a dynamic equilibrium between attraction and repulsion electrical forces. We noticed this lacuna incidentally while interviewing chemistry students for a bigger project aimed at supporting students in understanding the force‐based explanation of chemical bonding. This article describes our systematic qualitative study of the lacuna of repulsion and its impact on mental models of 23 high school chemistry students. Our findings show that students use six mental models, most of them built upon each other. Beginning from a simple mental model that describes the chemical bond as electrons, continuing with the including attraction forces, and completing with repulsion and a dynamic view of the bond. Only when one considers both attraction and repulsion forces and understands the dynamic balance between them is it possible to build the force‐based dynamic mental model of chemical bonding.

Embodied cognition theories view sensorimotor activity as fundamental to learning, knowing, and reasoning. To investigate the role of physical movement in conceptual learning, we developed and explored an Embodied Learning Interactive Chemistry environment (ELI‐Chem). The ELI‐Chem learning environment includes a computer simulation, a device for interacting with the simulation, and an online activity guide. In particular, we focused on the topic of chemical bonding—an abstract and nonintuitive phenomenon that is crucial to chemistry learning and that presents pervasive problems in learning. The ELI‐Chem learning environment embodies atoms' movement through four increasing degrees of bodily engagement in terms of range of motion and forces—movie, simulation, joystick, and haptic device (applies force feedback). A randomly assigned pretest‐intervention‐posttest four‐group comparison design was used with a mixed‐methods research approach. Quantitative analysis of pretest and posttest questionnaires tested the conceptual learning. Qualitative analysis of students' filled activity guides explored students' perceptions of the learning process and features of understanding. The participants were 48 high school chemistry students, 12 students in each degree of bodily engagement. During the activity, students were prompted to discover the forces underlying chemical bonding and to explore the energy changes involved. We found an increase in students' conceptual understanding in all four degrees of bodily engagement, with significantly higher learning gains and causal understanding in the haptic condition with a greater range of motion and forces. This study highlights the states in which embodied learning uniquely contributes to understanding and perception: absence of prior embodied experience, learning about a nonvisual concept related to forces, and a high congruence with the concept learned.

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