The aim of this research was to develop an effective, generative, and practical approach to enhance students’ structure-property reasoning (SPR). The approach consists of an evaluation instrument... Show moreThe aim of this research was to develop an effective, generative, and practical approach to enhance students’ structure-property reasoning (SPR). The approach consists of an evaluation instrument that assesses the level of structure-property reasoning and a teaching practice to make structure-property reasoning more explicit for students.As base of the approach, the perspective for SPR was used as model for structure-property reasoning. With this model, we aimed to represent the relationship between chemical concepts and the skill of structure-property reasoning.The SPR-instrument combines a sorting task with a mapping task based on the perspective for SPR. The instrument was tested on secondary school students and first-year chemistry students. The results showed that the SPR-instrument can discriminate between these two groups.This teaching practice consists of demonstration experiments with two design principles, namely the Predict-Observe-Explain (POE) approach and the perspective for SPR. The teaching practice was tested on Y-4 pre-university students. The results showed that the teaching practice contributed to the development of structure-property reasoning. The practicality of (re)designed demonstrations appeared to be as high as that of "traditional" demonstrations.The research showed that perspective for SPR (combined or not with POE-demonstrations) could bridge the gap in students’ chemical reasoning. Show less
Otter, M. den; Kuijpers, A.J.; Dam, M.; Juurlink, L.B.F.; Janssen, F.J.J.M. 2023
Chemical reasoning, and in particular structure–property reasoning, is an important goal of chemistry education. Johnstone’s triangle (1982, 1991) is often used to explicate this type of reasoning.... Show moreChemical reasoning, and in particular structure–property reasoning, is an important goal of chemistry education. Johnstone’s triangle (1982, 1991) is often used to explicate this type of reasoning. This triangle describes the multilevel thought chemical reasoning requires and shows why students find chemistry so difficult. However, this model gives little guidance for teachers and students on how to teach and learn structure–property reasoning. In this theoretical article, we propose an alternative model for structure–property reasoning which has three advantages compared with previous models, namely, more coherence between chemical concepts and the skill of reasoning, more horizontal coherence (coherence between the concepts), and more vertical coherence (coherence throughout the school years). In four cases selected from the Dutch secondary school chemistry curriculum, the model was used to show how it can guide teachers and students in teaching and learning structure–property reasoning, and to demonstrate these above-named three advantages. The presented model has various educational applications as a scaffold for students’ reasoning, and as an instruction, design, and curriculum tool for teachers. Show less
