Meaningful understanding of chemistry, among others, includes the ability of an individual to think simultaneously at macroscopic, submicroscopic and symbolic levels, and this presupposes the competence to translate between different types of chemical representations. In this study, we investigated 11th grade Greek students’ and 3rd year undergraduate chemistry students’ ability to translate chemical representations from one level of chemistry (e.g., submicroscopic) into another (e.g., symbolic) concerning the basic chemical concepts: “chemical element”, “chemical compound”, “aqueous solution” and “solid state of matter”, which have already been taught in earlier grades. We followed a mixed method design in which both quantitative and qualitative research instruments were developed and used. These instruments consisted of multiple choice and open-ended questions, which included real pictures (macroscopic), symbolizations and submicroscopic diagrams. Various representations of the three types were given to the students and they were asked to choose or to construct an equivalent one of a different type. Our results showed that the 11th grade students’ ability to move across the three levels of chemistry is very low, while the 3rd year undergraduate chemistry students’ performance is higher but not satisfactory. In addition, the results obtained from the application of “translation questions” between the three levels of chemistry highlighted many students’ alternative conceptions, some of which still persist among the undergraduate students. The students showed lower performance in translations concerning the concepts “chemical compound” and “aqueous solution” than those concerning the concepts “chemical element” and “solid state of matter”. The students also showed the lowest level of performance in translating the submicroscopic representations into the symbolic ones. Generally, our results indicate that translating between different types of chemical representations is a very challenging task, which depends on students’ conceptual understanding.

中文翻译：

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学生在不同类型的化学表示形式之间进行翻译的能力

对化学的有意义的理解包括个人在宏观，亚微观和象征性水平上同时思考的能力，这以在不同类型的化学表示形式之间进行翻译的能力为前提。在这项研究中，我们调查了希腊11年级学生和3年级化学专业学生针对基本化学概念将化学表示形式从一种化学形式（例如，亚微观）转变为另一种化学形式（例如，象征性）的能力：“化学元素” ，“化合物”，“水溶液”和“固态””，这已经在较早的课程中进行了讲授。我们遵循一种混合方法设计，其中定量和定性研究工具均得到开发和使用。这些工具包括多项选择题和不限成员名额的问题，其中包括真实照片（宏观），符号和亚显微图。这三种类型的代表被赋予了学生，他们被要求选择或构建不同类型的等同形式。我们的结果表明，十一年级学生在化学三个层次上的移动能力非常低，而三年级本科化学学生的成绩较高，但并不令人满意。此外，在三个化学等级之间应用“翻译问题”获得的结果突出了许多学生的替代概念，其中一些在大学生中仍然存在。与“化学元素”和“物质的固态”概念相比，与“化学化合物”和“水溶液”概念相关的学生在翻译中的表现要低。在将亚显微图像转换为符号图像时，学生也表现出最低水平的表现。通常，我们的结果表明，在不同类型的化学表示形式之间进行翻译是一项非常具有挑战性的任务，这取决于学生的概念理解。与“化学元素”和“物质的固态”概念相比，与“化学化合物”和“水溶液”概念相关的学生在翻译中的表现要低。在将亚显微图像转换为符号图像时，学生也表现出最低水平的表现。通常，我们的结果表明，在不同类型的化学表示形式之间进行翻译是一项非常具有挑战性的任务，这取决于学生的概念理解。与“化学元素”和“物质的固态”概念相比，与“化学化合物”和“水溶液”概念相关的学生在翻译中的表现要低。在将亚显微图像转换为符号图像时，学生也表现出最低水平的表现。通常，我们的结果表明，在不同类型的化学表示形式之间进行翻译是一项非常具有挑战性的任务，这取决于学生的概念理解。