Chunking in Chemistry
Abstract views: 428
/ 
PDF downloads: 205
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51724/ijpce.v5i1.73Keywords:
Chemistry Teaching, Chunking TheoryAbstract
Experts (2 groups, 41 participants) and non-experts (7 groups, 130 participants) in chemistry were exposed to sequences of chemical symbols for 30 seconds and then, after a minute, wrote them down. Four sequences were real chemical equations and four sequences were fakes got from the equations by random mixing the symbols. Experts in chemistry recalled real chemical equations (a) much better than fake sequences and (b) better than novices in chemistry. Meanwhile, no significant difference was found between the experts and the novices in recalling the fake sequences. Besides, the novices remember both real and fake sequences symbol-by-symbol from left to right, the frequency of mistakes increasing in the same order. The experts remember real equations as a whole and chunk some chains in the fake sequences remembering them better than others. All these results provide evidence that experts chunk chemical information and allow extending the chunking-based theories to chemistry teaching.
Downloads
References
Abe, M., Hanakawa, T., Takayama, Yo., Kuroki, Ch., Ogawa, S. & Fukuyama, H. (2007) Functional Coupling of Human Prefrontal and Premotor Areas during Cognitive Manipulation. Journal of Neuroscience, 27, 3429 –3438.
Akin, O. (1986) Psychology of architectural design. London: Pion.
Anderson, J.R. ACT. A Simple Theory of Complex Cognition. (1996) American Psychologist, 51, 4, 355-365.
Anderson, J.R., Bothell, D., Byrne, M. D., Douglass, S., Lebiere, C., Qin, Y. (2004) An Integrated Theory of the Mind. Psychological Review, 111, 1036 –1060.
Anderson J.R. (2007) How Can the Human Mind Occur in the Physical Universe? Oxford University Press.
Baddeley, A.D. (1999). Essentials of Human Memory. Psychology Press.
Boucher, L. & Dienes, Z. (2003). Two ways of learning associations. Cognitive Science, 27, 807–842.
Brooks, D.W. & Shell, D.F. (2006). Working memory, motivation, and teacher-initiated learning. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 15, 17-30.
Campitelli, G., Gobet, F., Head, K., Buckley, M. & Parker, A. (2007). Brain localization of memory chunks in chessplayers. International Journal of Neuroscience, 117, 1641–1659.
Chase, W.G., & Simon, H.A. (1973). Perception in chess. Cognitive Psychology, 4, 55–81.
Chi, M.T.H., Feltovich, P.J. & Glaser, R. (1981) Categorization and Representation of Physics Problems by Experts and Novices. Cognitive Science, 5: 2, 121 — 152.
Cooke, N. J. (1992). Modeling human expertise in expert systems. In R. Hoffman (Ed.) The Psychology of Expertise, Cognitive Research and Empirical AI (pp. 29-60). New York. Springer.
Cowan, N. (2001). The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24, 87–185.
Damerau F. (1964). A technique for computer detection and correction of spelling errors. Communications of the ACM, 7: 3, 1964, 171-176.
Danili, E. & Reid, N. (2004). Some strategies to improve performance in school chemistry, based on two cognitive factors. Research in Science & Technological Education, 22, 203-226.
DeGroot, A.D. (1946/2008). Thought and choice in chess. Amsterdam University Press. Amsterdam Academic Archive.
Derek, J.M. (2002). The 7±2 Urban Legend. MISRA C Conference 2002. http://www.knosof.co.uk/cbook/misart.pdf
Egan, D.E. & Schwartz, B.J. (1979). Chunking in recall of symbolic drawings. Memory and Cognition, 7, 149-158.
El-Banna. H. & Johnstone, A.H., (1986). Capacities, demands and processes: a predictive model for science education. Education in Chemistry, 23, 80-84.
Gobert, F. & Simon, H.A. (1996). Templates in chess memory: A mechanism for recalling several boards. Cognitive Psychology, 31, 1–40.
Gobert, F. & Simon, H.A. (1996b). Chunks in chess memory: Recall of random and distorted positions. Memory and Cognition, 24, 493-503.
Gobet, F. & Simon, H.A. (1998). Expert Chess Memory: Revisiting the Chunking Hypothesis. Memory, 6, 225-255.
Gobet, F. & Simon, H.A. (2000). Five Seconds or Sixty? Presentation Time in Expert Memory. Cognitive Science, 24, 651–682.
Gobet, F., Lane, P.C.R., Croker, S., Cheng, P.C.-H., Jones, G., Oliver, I. & Pine, J.M. (2001). Chunking Mechanisms in Human Learning. TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, 5, 236–243.
Howe, T.V. & Johnstone, A.H. (1971). Reason or memory? The learning of formulae and equations. Edinburgh, National Curriculum Development Centre Bulletin 1.
Johnstone, A. H. (2006). Chemical Education Research in Glasgow in Perspective. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 7, 49-63.
Kellett, N.C. & Johnstone, A.H. (1980). Learning Difficulties in School Science – towards a Working Hypothesis. European Journal of Science Education, 2, 175-181.
Kirschner P.A., Sweller J, Klark R.E. (2006). Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching. Educational Psychologist, 41, 75–86.
Klahr, D., Chase, W.G. & Lovelace, E.A. (1983). Structure and Process in Alphabetic Retrieval. Journal of Experimantal Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 9, 462-477.
Koedinger, K. R. & Anderson, J. R. (1990). Abstract Planning and Perceptual Chunks: Elements of Expertise in Geometry. Cognitive Science, 14, 511–550.
Levenstein, V.I. (1966) Binary Codes Capable of Correcting Deletions, Insertions and Reversals. Soviet Physics – Doklady, 10, 707-710.
McNeill, K.L., Lizotte, D.J., Krajcik, J. & Marx, R.W. (2006) Supporting Students’ Construction of Scientific Explanations by Fading Scaffolds in Instructional Materials. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 15, 153–191.
McWhinney, B. (2004). A Unified Model of Language Acquisition. In J. Kroll & A. De Groot (Eds.), Handbook of Bilingualism: Psycholinguistic Approaches (pp. 49-67). Oxford, UK. Oxford University Press.
Miller, J.A. (1956). The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two. Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information. Psychological Review, 101, 343-352.
Reid, N. (2008). A scientific approach to the teaching of chemistry. What do we know about how students learn in the sciences, and how can we make our teaching match this to maximise performance? Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 9, 51–59.
Saravanamuthu, K. (2008) Reflecting on the Biggs-Watkins theory of the Chinese Learner. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 19, 138-180.
Servan-Schreiber, E. & Anderson, J.R. (1990). Learning Artificial Grammars with Competitive Chunking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 16, 592-608.
Sirhan, G. (2007) Learning Difficulties in Chemistry: An Overview. Journal of Turkish Science Education, 4, 2-20.
Sweller, J. (2003). Evolution of Human cognitive architecture. In B. Ross (Ed), The Psychology of learning and motivation, Vol. 43, (pp. 215-266), San Diego: Academic Press.
Taasoobshirazi, G. & Glynn, S.W. (2009) College Students Solving Chemistry Problems: A Theoretical Model of Expertise. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46, 1070–1089.
Watkins, D. & Ismail, M. (1994). Is the Asian Learner a Rote Learner? A Malaysian Perspective. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 19, 483–488.
Walczak, S. & Fishwick, P. (1997). A quantitative analysis of pattern production and its relationship to expert performance. Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, 9, 83-101.
Wickelgren, W.A. (1964). Size of rehearsal group and short-term memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 68, 413–419.
Yuan, K., Steedle, J., Shavelson, R., Alonzo, A. & Oppezzo, M. (2006) Working memory, fluid intelligence, and science learning. Educational Research Review, 1, 83–98
Zhilin, D. (2010) How much Information do Chemical Equations Content? Abstract book of 3rd World Conference on Science and Technology Education. Tartu, June, 28 – July 2 2010 (pp. 230-232). http://www.mioo.ru/projects/1119/x3/zhilin-inf_in_chemeq.pdf.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2013 Eurasian Journal of Physics & Chemistry Education
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Copyright © Authors
