Diana G. Bekerman^1,, Lorena Pepa¹, Elvira Vaccaro¹, Manuel Alonso², Lydia R. Galagovsky³

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.

simulations, chemical solutions, teaching, learning, errors