This proposal will investigate and study high school and college students' understanding of chemistry. During the course of this study, the PIs will build a computer-based learning environment for chemistry (called ChemSense). The development of ChemSense will be iterative, meaning that the results of students' use of ChemSense as a learning tool will be used to reengineer ChemSense so that by the end of the three-year project, a robust computer-based tool for learning chemistry is envisioned. From a basic research perspective, the PIs wish to characterize: (a) which representations were most helpful for students to learn chemistry, (b) how students learn general scientific principles, and (c) their ability to transfer learning from the computer environment to other learning situations.
