eng Science and Education Publishing American Journal of Educational Research 2327-6150 2016-05-25 4 8 608 612 10.12691/education-4-8-5 EDUCATION2016485 article Diana G. Bekerman dianabekerman@gmail.com 1 Lorena Pepa 1 Elvira Vaccaro 1 Manuel Alonso 2 Lydia R. Galagovsky 3 Departamento de Ciencias Exactas, Ciclo B'sico Com'n, Universidad de Buenos Aires, C1405CAE, Buenos Aires, Argentina Departamento de Ciencias Biol'gicas, Ciclo B'sico Com'n, Universidad de Buenos Aires, C1405CAE, Buenos Aires, Argentina Instituto Centro de Formaci'n e Investigaci'n en Ense?anza de las Ciencias (CEFIEC), Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, C1428EGA, Buenos Aires, Argentina Using animations, visualizations and simulations is a common practice to teach chemistry. These didactic resources provide a motivational effect which in turn should improve the understanding of concepts by the students. This is effectively observed, but not all students benefit from these resources to the same extent. In this work, we use a simulation of chemical solutions and then evaluate a group of students on it. From the wrong answers we proceed to establish categories: 1) Incorrect or misguided mathematical approaches, dissociated from the chemical meaning of the question, 2) difficulties in the use of chemical syntax, 3) semantic difficulties, and 4) alternative mental models. Having identified the types of errors allows teachers to work on them in a directed manner, making possible different approaches for each category. http://pubs.sciepub.com/education/4/8/5/education-4-8-5.pdf simulations chemical solutions teaching learning errors