Leveraging cognitive resources to investigate the impact of molecular orientation on students’ activation of symmetry resources

Abstract

This study investigates students’ cognitive resources for identifying symmetry elements using survey data collected from 39 inorganic chemistry students from twelve undergraduate inorganic classes at universities across the United States....

Supporting submicroscopic reasoning in students’ explanations of absorption phenomena using a simulation-based activity

“…Furthermore, resources, while not intrinsically correct or incorrect, can be activated productively or unproductively for a given task: Clement et al (1989) have highlighted that even preconceptions that could be perceived as ''barriers'' to learning can be leveraged productively by students as anchoring conceptions towards a specific task or learning objective. In other words, as has been proposed recently, the evaluation of the scientific accuracy of a resource activation and the characterization of its usage as ''productive'' or ''unproductive'' lie along distinct, in-principle independent, axes (Crandell and Pazicni, 2023).…”

“…Additionally, the distinction between productivity and accuracy observed in our dataset is in line with the principles of the resources framework (the correctness of a resource is not inherent, but rather context-dependent) as well as recent literature. Recent work by Crandell and Pazicni (2023) investigated students' activation of symmetry resources. They pointed out that in some cases, students might be leveraging resources that are productive in helping them solve problems but the resources themselves may not necessarily be considered scientifically normative.…”

How Do Inorganic Students Represent Molecular Orbitals? A Multi-Institutional Study from the Foundation-Level Inorganic Chemistry Course

“…While there have been calls for more research into learner conceptions in advanced coursework (e.g., physical chemistry), little work has been done in inorganic chemistry . Much of the work in inorganic chemistry has addressed other course topics that require visualization skills, such as molecular three-dimensional symmetry. − Research on student ideas about covalent bonding has focused on introductory ideas of ionic and covalent bonding with little attention to advanced bonding models. ,, …”

Projecting Is Such Sweet Sorrow: Undergraduate Students’ Interpretation of Fischer and Haworth Carbohydrate Projections

“…Founded in constructivist ideology, the Resources Framework views building knowledge from experiences, acknowledging the fragmented and manifold view of cognitive structure . Hammer et al defines resources within the resource-based model of cognition as conceptualized fine-grained cognitive units that from complex networks, allowing resources to be characterized on the basis of the nature of the ideas discussed. , The asset-based perspective of the Resources Framework forgoes the binary approach of characterizing students’ ideas as completely correct or completely incorrect, which opens interpretation of implications of the results from the perspective that students’ responses can be productive in a given context with varying levels of accuracywith accuracy being what is correct or incorrect as established by the discipline and productivity being the appropriate activation of a resource as judged by the discipline (via instructor and/or researcher) in a learning environment. − In this study, productivity is also defined as the ability to translate between representations in a given context.…”