The use of chemical representations of structure is ubiquitous throughout the discipline of chemistry.  From Lewis structures to Newman Projections, novice chemistry students are expected to construct and utilize a wide-ranging set of representations and are usually expected to do so with a great degree of fidelity.  Our previous research, however, highlighted how difficult this process was for many students and hinted that issues surrounding cognitive load were at least partially responsible for some of the documented problems.  Information processing provides a powerful model for understanding how learning occurs and emphasizes the important role that cognitive load plays in this process.  In instances where the cognitive load of a problem exceeds the available working memory, learning can be seriously hindered.  Previously reported methods for measuring cognitive load have typically been collected post-hoc and can be subjective.  More recent methods, however, rely on the collection of physiological data such as blink rate, heat flow, galvanic skin response, or heart rate and address many of the shortcomings associated with the more traditional techniques.  We have recently developed a system for using heart rate to monitor changes in cognitive load while students work chemistry problems.  This presentation will focus on our use of this technique to explore issues surrounding students' ability to construct and manipulate chemical representations.

Exploring the impact of cognitive load on students' use of chemical representations using physiological metrics

247th National Meeting (2014)

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