CHED 217 |
| Representations are a necessary constituent of cognition. They allow us to act on real-world items without them being present, to invent and manipulate imaginary entities, and to perform complex cognitive tasks such as problem solving. The ability to construct, interpret, evaluate and utilize both internal mental representations, as well as external representations has a direct bearing on the performance level one brings to a specific cognitive task. diSessa (2004) [Cognition and Instruction, 22, 293-331], refers to this as metarepresentational competence. This paper explores the metarepresentational competence of 12 undergraduates in their first semester of organic chemistry. Through one-on-one semi-structured clinical interviews, the metarepresentational competence of these students with respect to constructing, interpreting, manipulating and evaluating representations of cycloalkanes was assessed. |
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Research in Chemical Education
8:30 AM-11:55 AM, Monday, March 26, 2007 McCormick Place North -- Room N227A, Level 2, Oral
Division of Chemical Education |