In this quantitative study, the effect of explaining macroscopic observations (via contrasted microscopic animations) was examined to study its effect on participants’ conceptual understanding of chemical phenomena. The study consisted of three independent online activities that presented videos of experimental evidence for macroscopic chemical phenomena (i.e., reduction-oxidation, precipitation, and acid-base reactions), followed by microscopic animation models of the mechanism of the reactions. After watching the videos and animations, participants were prompted to contrast specific features of all animation models to explain the experimental observations best. The explanation prompts were designed to elicit participants’ <i>explaining</i> ability, as the strategy to improve conceptual understanding. Thus, the study focuses on the benefit of learning from <i>explaining </i>(also refer as explain for the best inference, EBI), instead of focusing on the outcome of the explaining process—the participant’s written explanations and the correct usage of chemistry content knowledge. Data collection consisted of participants’ written responses to the online activities and post-learning tasks (i.e., multiple-choice questionnaires). In the study herein, data analysis and interpretation focused on the completion of the online activities and the performance in the post-learning tasks. The findings of the study will be presented and discussed in light of its potential implementation in General Chemistry courses.

Explaining for the Best Inference (EBI) and conceptual understanding of chemical phenomena using contrasting molecular animations

2019 Spring National Meeting

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.