| This study identifies, classifies, and characterizes student conceptions of chemical equilibrium and fundamental concepts of chemical thermodynamics. Clinical interviews were conducted with sixteen students, from three different institutions, currently enrolled in the thermodynamics semester of college physical chemistry. Student interviews were conducted near the end of the semester after course material covering equilibrium and most fundamental thermodynamic concepts had been presented and tested over in the physical chemistry course.;Students were presented with a series of questions concerning a particular chemical system that is undergoing spontaneous change. Questions were designed to probe students' understanding of equilibrium and fundamental thermodynamic concepts by eliciting their qualitative descriptions and explanations for what is happening in that particular chemical system. These descriptions and explanations revealed student conceptions concerning: spontaneous change and Gibbs energy; the First Law of Thermodynamics and reversibility, heat, work, and enthalpy; the Second Law of Thermodynamics and entropy; and equilibrium, factors affecting equilibrium composition, and factors determining the value of equilibrium constants.;Twenty-nine different prevalent alternative conceptions and non-conceptions concerning equilibrium and fundamental thermodynamic concepts were found. Many other less prevalent (;Student conceptions were rated according to how well they matched an expert response derived from physical chemistry textbooks. Combined ratings of student conceptions concerning all concepts were significantly, positively correlated with T-scores for relative, overall performance on instructor-designed, in-class tests concerning equilibrium and fundamental thermodynamic concepts at the 0.05 probability level, ;By eliciting a wide range of student alternative conceptions, this study has demonstrated that clinical interviews probing a student's understanding of a particular chemical event are a powerful way of revealing the quality of student understanding of concepts and principles in a junior/senior level college chemistry class. |
