Research On The Mental Models About "Ionic Bonding" Of Senior High And Undergraduate School Students

Ionic bonding constant is one of the core concepts of chemical learning,and it is the focus and difficulty of secondary school chemical teaching and learning.Ionic bonding is an abstract concept,and its formation process is difficult for the students to understand.The mental model is a high-level construction of thinking,and it is a special mental representation.Individuals based on existing experience can be built in the brain to the external things of the micro model and use the model to respond to the corresponding situation.This paper is an overview of the empirical studies on the basis of the study of ionic bonding and mental models about home and abroad.Includ the preparation of questionnaires,we get on the simple interviews of second grade high school students,first grade college students,middle school chemistry teachers and chemical education workers.Our subject is detect not only the mental models but also the influence factors about chemical equilibrium constant,which students and teachers may hold.SPSS22.0 software is use for data analysis.Based on the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data,we sum up seven mental models,they are guess model,language model,memory model,symbol model,analogy model,picture model and scientific model.We come to the following conclusions:(1)The mental models of students of different grades are defective and different,there are many alternative conceptions that are different to the scientific model.There is a difference between the different grades.(2)The mental models of students of different grades are progressive,with the rise of grade,the mental model of students' ionic bonding is evolving.(3)Students prefer simple picture model for ionic bonding.(4)There is similarity and difference between teachers and students' mental models.For the above conclusions,we make the following suggestions:(1)Emphasize macro-micro-links to explain the nature and purpose of the mental model.(2)Provide sufficient reason for high level mental models.(3)Examine curriculum for appropriate content.(4)Identify and address specific alternative conceptions.(5)Take care with visual clues and make use of combined manipulatives.