CHEMISTRY EDUCATION: RESEARCH AND PRACTICE IN EUROPE 2001, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 227-239	RESEARCH REPORT Methods and issues of teaching and learning

Hans-Dieter BARKE and Temechegn ENGIDA
University of Muenster, Institute for Didactics of Chemistry

STRUCTURAL CHEMISTRY AND SPATIAL ABILITY IN DIFFERENT CULTURES

ABSTRACT: In chemistry, the importance of structure of matter cannot be underestimated. It has always been a tradition in organic chemistry to use the stick-and-ball model of molecular structure, to discuss isomers or to derive structural formulas. Unfortunately, this structure-oriented approach is not common in teaching inorganic chemistry at secondary schools at least in Germany: Although metals, sulfur, sulfides, oxides or chlorides are mostly taken as solid substances, in school lessons it is not common to have sphere packings or crystal lattices as structural models of these inorganic solids. On the other hand, true understanding of structures in chemistry requires a sufficient level of spatial ability. Accordingly, this research investigated spatial abilities not only of German students at grades 7 - 12 of secondary schools (ages 13 - 18 years), but also a comparable sample of African students in Addis Ababa. In each country, we took samples of two different school types and based our studies on three hypotheses dealing with cultural, grade (age) and sex differences. [Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. Eur.: 2001, 2, 227-239]

KEY WORDS: structural chemistry; chemical structure; crystal lattice; molecular structure; chemical symbols; imagination; spatial ability; spatial ability test; sex differences; cultural differences

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