Using Students’ Concept-building Tendencies to Better Characterize Average-Performing Student Learning and Problem-Solving Approaches in General Chemistry

Abstract

Students’ concept-building approaches (abstraction vs. exemplar), identified a priori with a cognitive-psychology laboratory task, have been extended to learning complex topics in general chemistry. Here, the effect concept-building approaches have on the problem-solving behaviors of average-achieving students was probed via think-aloud interviews.