The relationship between a chemical structure and its physical and chemical properties is a core idea in chemistry. Previous studies have shown that students have much difficulty with the relationship between structure and properties particularly due to the multiple pieces of information that must be concatenated (e.g. drawing a Lewis structure, determining molecular shape, and identifying molecular polarity). The goal of this research is to determine (1) when do students self-report their ability to predict structure-property relationships and (2) how do students predict and explain structure-property relationships for a boiling point ranking task. An assessment was developed and administered to second-semester general chemistry students (N=116) using beSocratic, a free-form structure drawing program which allows students to submit written and drawn responses. The first half of the assessment consisted of multiple answer questions that examined students’ self-report on what information could be predicted using a Lewis structure, while the second half of the assessment consisted of open-ended questions (both text and drawings) aimed to scaffold student explanations of the relationship between a chemical structure and its boiling point, in terms of intermolecular forces. The findings from both parts of the assessment results will be discussed.

Making predictions and constructing explanations: An investigation into introductory chemistry students’ understanding of structure-property relationships

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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