Demystifying bonding

Chemists use a complex combination of jargon and graphics to communicate information, and it should be no surprise that students can find it difficult to adapt to this new ‘language’ of multiple representations. Hilton and Nichols have carried out a study which probed students’ understanding of different representations in relation to the vital topic of chemical bonding.

In their introduction, the authors revisit the suggestion that there are three levels of representation in chemistry; macroscopic, sub-microscopic and symbolic. They propose that students’ misconceptions arise from the misguided use of different forms of representation by past teachers, adding to the mystery of chemistry rather than clarifying it. In particular, symbolic representations, communicating little information about underlying phenomena, can be problematic.