Students’ visualization skills in a modeling-based science education context
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5007/1982-5153.2025.e102619Keywords:
Visualization skills, Modeling-based Science Education, Chemistry TeachingAbstract
In order to learn Chemistry, students have to make connections between different levels of chemical knowledge. Therefore, visualization skills are essential in this process since they can support the creation of visualizations/representations. In this study, we investigated how high school students participating in a modeling course showed evidence of using visualization skills to investigate and explain properties of different plastics. From the whole set of data produced from video recordings of the course meetings, we selected episodes in which they manifested such skills and classified them using a priori and emergent categories. The results show that several of the visualization skills analyzed were manifested in all the stages of modeling and related to different levels of chemical knowledge. Based on the results and conclusions, we highlight the importance of science teachers involving students in scientific processes that favor them to use and develop their visualization skills.
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