A tangible user interface for teaching fairy tales about chemical bonding

Keith S. Taber

 

Today I received one of those internet notifications intended to alert you to work that you might want to read:

"You wrote the paper A common core to chemical conceptions: learners' conceptions of chemical…. A related paper is available on Academia.

Tangible interaction approach for learning chemical bonding"

I was intrigued. Learning (and teaching) about chemical bonding concepts has been a long-standing interest of mine, and I have written quite a lot on the topic, so I clicked-through and downloaded the paper.

The abstract began

"In this paper we present ChemicAble, a Tangible User Interface (TUI) for teaching ionic bonding to students of grade 8 to 10. ChemicAble acts as an exercise tool for students to understand better the concepts of ionic bonding by letting them explore and learn…."

Ionic bonding – an often mislearnt topic

This led to mixed feelings.

Anything that can support learners in making sense of the abstract, indeed intangible, nature of chemical bonding offered considerable potential to help learners and support teachers. Making the abstract more concrete is often a useful starting point in learning about theoretical concepts. So, this seemed a very well-motivated project that could really be useful.

It is sometimes argued that educational research is something of an irrelevance as it seldom impacts on classroom practice. In my (if, perhaps, biased) experienced, this is not so – but it is unrealistic to expect research to bring about widespread changes in educational practice quickly, and arguments that most teachers do not read research journals and so do not know who  initiated particular proposals has always seemed to me to be missing the point. We are not looking for teachers to pass tests on the content of research literature, and it is quite natural that the influence of research is usually indirect through, for example, informing teacher education and development programmes, or through revisions of curriculum, recommended teaching schemes, or formal standards.

This study by Agrawal and colleagues was not a theoretical treatise but a report of the implementation of a tool to support teaching and learning – the kind of thing that could directly impact teaching. So this was all promising.

However,I  also knew only too well that ionic bonding was a tricky topic. When I started research into learners' developing understanding of chemical bonding (three decades ago, now) I read several studies suggesting there were common alternative conceptions, that is misunderstandings, of ionic bonding found among students (e.g., Butts & Smith,  1987).

My own research suggested these were not just isolated notions, but often reflected a coherent alternative conceptual framework for ionic bonding that I labelled the 'molecular' framework (Taber, 1994, 1997). Research I have seen from other contexts since, leads me to believe this is an international phenomenon, and not limited to a specific curriculum context (Taber, 2013).

(Read about 'the Understanding Chemical Bonding project')

Ionic bonding – an often mistaught topic?

Indeed, I feel confident in suggesting:

• secondary level students very commonly develop an alternative understanding of ionic bonding inconsistent with the scientific account…
• …which they find difficult to move beyond should they continue to college level chemistry…
• … and which they are convinced is what they were taught

Moreover, I strongly suspect that in quite a few cases, the alternative, incorrect model, is being taught. It is certainly presented, or at least implied, in a good many textbooks, and on a wide range of websites claiming to teach chemistry. I also suspect that in at least some cases,  teachers are teaching this, themselves thinking it is an acceptable approximation to the scientific account.

(Read about 'The molecular framework for ionic bonding')

A curriculum model of ionic bonding

So, I scanned the paper to see what account of the science was used as the basis for planning this teaching tool. I found this parenthetical account:

"{As stated in the NCERT book on Science for class X, chapter 3, 4, the electrons present in the outermost shell of an atom are known as the valence electrons. The outermost shell of an atom can accommodate a maximum of 8 electrons. Atoms of elements, having a completely filled outermost shell show little chemical activity. Of these inert elements, the helium atom has two electrons in its outermost shell and all other elements have atoms with eight electrons in the outermost shell.

The combining capacity of the atoms of other elements is explained as an attempt to attain a fully-filled outermost shell (8 electrons forming an octet). The number of electrons gained, lost or shared so as to make the octet of electrons in the outermost shell, gives us directly the combining capacity of the element called the valency. An ion is a charged particle and can be negatively or positively charged. A negatively charged ion is called an 'anion' and the positively charged ion, a 'cation'. Metals generally form cations and non-metals generally form anions. Atoms have tendency to complete their octet by this give and take of electron forming compounds. Compounds that are formed by electron transfer from metals to non-metals are called ionic compounds.}"

Agrawal et al., 2013 (no page numbers)

There are quite a few ideas here, and quite a lot of his account is perfectly canonical, at least at the level of description suitable for secondary school, introductory, chemistry. However, sprinkled in are some misleading statements.

So,

Curriculum statement	Commentary
"…the electrons present in the outermost shell of an atom are known as the valence electrons."	Fine
"The outermost shell of an atom can accommodate a maximum of 8 electrons."	This is only correct for period 2. It is false false for period 1 (2 electrons), period 3 (18 electrons), period 4 (32 electrons), etcetera.
"Atoms of elements, having a completely filled outermost shell show little chemical activity. Of these inert elements, the helium atom has two electrons in its outermost shell and all other elements have atoms with eight electrons in the outermost shell."	Fine – apart from the reference to  "completely filled outermost shell" Of the noble gases, only helium and neon have full outer shells. 'Atoms' of the heavier noble gases with full outer shells would not atoms, but ions, and these would be extremely unstable – i.e., they could not exist except hypothetically under extreme conditions of very intense electrical fields.
"The combining capacity of the atoms of other elements is explained as an attempt to attain a fully-filled outermost shell (8 electrons forming an octet). The number of electrons gained, lost or shared so as to make the octet of electrons in the outermost shell, gives us directly the combining capacity of the element called the valency."	Hm –  generally the valency can be identified with the difference between an atom's electronic configuration and the 'nearest' noble gas electronic configuration – which would be an octet of valence shell electrons, except in period one. However,  the equivalence suggested here "a fully-filled outermost shell (8 electrons forming an octet)" is only true for period 2. An octet does not suffice for a full outer shell in period 3 (full at 18  electrons), or in period 4 (full at 32 electrons), etcetera. And, in the statement, valency is described as being related to the intentions of atoms: "is explained as an attempt to attain…" (and "…electrons gained, lost or shared so as to…") which encourages student misconceptions. [Read about 'Learners' anthropomorphic thinking'.]
"An ion is a charged particle and can be negatively or positively charged. A negatively charged ion is called an 'anion' and the positively charged ion, a 'cation'. Metals generally form cations and non-metals generally form anions."	Fine.
"Atoms have tendency to complete their octet by this give and take of electron forming compounds."	This is a common notion, but actually suspect. Some elements have an electron affinity such that the atoms would tend to pick up an electron spontaneously. However, for an element with a valency of -2, such as oxygen, once it has become a singly charged anion (O–), it will not attract a second electron, so apart from the halogens, this is misleading. The negatively charged O– ion will indeed spontaneously repel/be repelled by a (negatively charged) electron. Metallic elements have ionisation enthalpies showing that energy has to be applied to strip electrons from them – they certainly do not have a "tendency to complete their octet by this giv[ing]" of electrons.
"Compounds that are formed by electron transfer from metals to non-metals are called ionic compounds."	This is not usually how ionic compounds are formed. Although it is possible in the lab. to use binary synthesis (e.g., burning sodium in chlorine – not for the faint-hearted), that is not how ionic compounds are prepared in industry, or how the NaCl in table salt formed naturally. (And even when burning sodium in chlorine, neither of the reactants are atomic, so even here there is no simple transfer of electrons between atoms.)

So this account is a mixture of the generally correct; the potentially misleading; and the downright wrong.

Agrawal and colleagues describe an ingenuous apparatus they had put together so that students can physically manipulate tokens to see ionic bond formation represented. This looks like something that younger secondary children would really enjoy.

They also report a small-scale informal evaluation of a classroom test of the apparatus with an unspecified number of students, reporting very positive responses. The children generally found the apparatus easy to use, the information it represented easy to understand, and they thought it helped them learn about chemical [ionic] compound formation.  So this seems very successful.

However, what did it help them learn?

The teaching model

"For example, when a token representing [a] sodium atom is placed on the table top, its valence shell (outermost shell) with 1 revolving valence electron is displayed around the token. When the student places a chlorine atom on the table, its valence shell along with 7 revolving valence electrons is displayed. The electron from the sodium atom gets transferred to the chlorine atom. +1 charge appears on the sodium atom due to loss of electron and -1 charge appears on the chlorine atom due to gain of electron. Both form a stable compound. The top bar on the user interface turns green to show success and displays the name of the stable compound so formed (sodium chloride, in this case). The valence shell of the atoms also turns green to show a stable compound."

Agrawal et al., 2013 (no page numbers)

Which sounds impressive, except NaCl is not formed by electron transfer, and with the ChemicAble the resulting structure is a single Na⁺-Cl^– ion pair, which does not represent the structure of the NaCl compound, and indeed would not be a stable structure.

Does it matter if children are taught scientific fairy tales?

The innovation likely motivated learners. And the authors seem to be basing their 'ChemicAble' on the curriculum models set out in the model science books produced by the Indian National Council of Educational Research and Training. So, the authors have produced something that helps children learn the science curriculum in that context,and so presumably what students will subsequently be examined on. Given that, it seems churlish to point out that what is being taught is scientifically wrong.

So, I find it hard to be critical of the authors, but I do wonder why governments want children to learn scientific fairy tales that are nonsense. The electron transfer model of ionic bonding seems to be popular with teachers, and received well by learners, so if the aim of education is to find material to teach that we can then test children on (so they can be graded, rated, sequences, selected), what is the problem? After all, I am a strong advocate for the idea that what we teach in school science is usually, necessarily, a simplification of the science – and indeed is basically a set of models – and not some absolute account of the universe.

Here the children, the teacher and the researchers have all put a lot of effort into helping learners acquire a scientifically incorrect account of ionic bonding. We think children should learn about the world at the molecular, naometre scale as this is such an important part of chemistry as a science. Yet, to my mind, if we are going to ask children to put time and effort into learning abstract models of the structure of nature at submicroscopic levels, even though we know this is challenging for them, then, although we need to work with simplified models, these should at least be intellectually honest models, and not accounts that we know are completely inauthentic and do not reflect the science. This is why I have been so critical of the incoherence and errors in the chemistry in the English National Curriculum (Taber, 2020).

Otherwise, education is reduced to a game for its own sake, and we may as well ask students to learn random Latin texts, or the plots of Grimms' Fairy Tales, or even the chemical procedures obscured by disguised reagents and allegorical language in alchemical texts, and then test them on how much they retain.

Actually, no, this learning of false models is worse than that, because learning these incorrect accounts confuses students and impedes their learning of the canonical scientific models if they later go on to study the subject further. So, if it is important that children learn something about ionic bonding, let's teaching something that is scientifically authentic and stop offering fairly tales about atoms wanting to fill their shells.

Sources cited:

• Agrawal, M., Jain, M., Luthra, V., Thariyan, A., & Sorathia, K. (2013). ChemicAble: Tangible interaction approach for learning chemical bonding. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 11th Asia Pacific Conference on Computer Human Interaction.
• Butts, B., & Smith, R. (1987). HSC Chemistry Students' Understanding of the Structure and Properties of Molecular and Ionic Compounds. Research in Science Education, 17(1), 192-201.
• Taber, K. S. (1994). Misunderstanding the Ionic Bond. Education in Chemistry, 31(4), 100-103.
• Taber, K. S. (1997). Student understanding of ionic bonding: molecular versus electrostatic thinking? School Science Review, 78(285), 85-95.
• Taber, K. S. (2013). A common core to chemical conceptions: learners' conceptions of chemical stability, change and bonding. In G. Tsaparlis & H. Sevian (Eds.), Concepts of Matter in Science Education (pp. 391-418). Dordrecht: Springer.
• Taber, K. S. (2020). Conceptual confusion in the chemistry curriculum: exemplifying the problematic nature of representing chemical concepts as target knowledge. Foundations of Chemistry, 22, 309-334. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10698-019-09346-3