Analysing symbolic expressions in secondary school chemistry: their functions and implications for pedagogy

Abstract

Symbolic expressions are essential resources for producing knowledge, yet they are a source of learning difficulties in chemistry education. This study aims to employ social semiotics to analyse the symbolic representation of chemistry from two complementary perspectives, referred to here as contextual (i.e., historical) and functional. First, the contextual account demonstrates that symbolism was introduced to represent compounds according to their elemental composition, to quantify chemistry, and to explain reactivity. Further to this, the functional analysis shows that symbolic expressions entail a range of unique grammatical resources to create specialised forms of knowledge, which cannot be made by natural language alone. It is found that historically the symbolic representation was not originally directly related to the submicroscopic domain, nor did it develop sufficient means to offer particulate explanations, although an indirect link could be set up between Berzelian formulae and the submicroscopic theoretical models. It is also found that understanding the quantitative aspects is a necessary but not sufficient condition for effective engagement with the symbolic representation of chemistry. Finally the present study discusses the pedagogic implications stemming from the social semiotic account of chemical symbolism.

Reading textual and non-textual explanations in chemistry texts and textbooks – a review

“…A focus on written texts for descriptive analyses emerged so that chemistry texts and textbooks have often been used to point out characteristic linguistic elements (Thiele and Treagust, 1995;Scheppegrell, 2001;Groves, 2016;Yun and Park, 2018). In the course of time, science and chemistry education research shifted its interests from purely printed and text-based research aims (Cassels and Johnstone, 1985;Meyerson et al, 1991;Carver, 1994) towards a wider understanding of language in science and chemistry education, namely to more non-textual explanations in printed and digital formats (Bergqvist et al, 2013;Liu and Taber, 2016;Enero Upahi and Ramnarain, 2019;Gkitzia et al, 2020;Jian, 2021). These non-textual explanations include all forms of representations that do not solely focus on written words, phrases and sentences but rather add information to texts by including graphs, tables, diagrams, pictures, formulas etc.…”

“…For chemistry, education research also focuses on specialised forms of representations like symbolic language features of the language of chemistry (Taber, 2015;Liu and Taber, 2016) or mechanistic language features in organic chemistry (Bongers et al, 2019;Watts et al, 2022). Research by Bhattacharyya (2014), Galloway et al (2017) and Graulich and Caspari (2021) outline differences of students' reading and interpretation of mechanistic language in chemistry and spectra are evaluated in terms of reading texts on the tertiary level (Topczewski et al, 2017;Connor et al, 2021).…”

The Effect of e-Learning Strategy at Primary School Level on Understanding Structure and States of Matter

“…However, merely providing dynamic visuals does not necessarily result in better understanding. Learners are faced with increased information-processing demands compared to static visuals (Lowe, 2003). The transitory nature of dynamic visuals may cause higher cognitive demands (Lewalter, 2003), so molecular representations often require…”

Examination of Chemical Representations in Turkish High School Chemistry Textbooks

“…By the use of representations, "…chemists are able to visualize, discuss, and understand the molecules and chemical processes that account for the more perceivable reagents and phenomena they observe…" (Kozma & Russel, 2005, p. 130). Although termed differently, macroscopic, submicroscopic, and symbolic representations have been pointed out as major levels in chemistry (Johnstone, 1993(Johnstone, , 2000a(Johnstone, , 2000bGabel, 1999;Gilbert & Treagust, 2009;Justi & Gilbert, 2003;Liu & Taber, 2016;Taber, 2013;Talanquer, 2011). Johnstone (2000a) explicitly argued that these three forms of representation could be thought as corners of a triangle.…”