Students’ difficulties with gaining a conceptual understanding of the electronic structure in the atom have been identified. Our project focuses on investigating both general chemistry and physical chemistry students’ understandings of electronic structure with regards to both probability and energy quantization. We conducted semi-structured interviews with general chemistry and physical chemistry students (n=26 and n=8, respectively) using multiple representations of the atomic orbitals for helium and carbon atoms and an energy level diagram for the hydrogen atom. Meaningful learning theory was used to frame both our interview guide and data analyses by exploring students’ prior knowledge. The data analysis was used to develop a concept inventory to measure students’ misconceptions about the electronic structure of the atom. The inventory was administered to first semester general chemistry students after they had been formally introduced and tested on the subject of quantum model of the atom. Preliminary findings on students’ performance in the concept inventory will be presented.

Development of an inventory to measure students’ understandings of quantization and probability using representations of the electronic structure of the atom

255th National Meeting (2018)

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