Students’ experiences of teachers’ ways of unpacking visual representations in the context of intermolecular forces

Abstract

This is the third article in a series, emanating from a project that used social semiotics and phenomenography to explore therole visual representations play in the teaching and learning of chemistry. Building on our earlier work that identified fivequalitatively different ways that teachers may use to unpack visual representations in their introductory classes at uppersecondary school when dealing with intermolecular forces, this article deals with how students describe their experience ofchemistry teachers’ unpacking of visual representations. The theoretical thematic analysis, grounded in phenomenography andsocial semiotics, foregrounds qualitative differences in students’ experiences of teachers’ representational work. The resultsshow that the ways of unpacking that we previously characterized as student‐centered were described by the students as beingparticularly valuable. Here, a key point from a student perspective is that the teacher reflects on how to verbally guide themthrough the unpacking process in ways that support them in their meaning‐making. We use these results to propose thatchemistry teacher practice and education can be modified to emphasize the importance of seeing the practice of unpackingfrom a semiotic perspective. Furthermore, based on our findings and previous research in the chemistry education field, weconclude by suggesting a strategy that can be used in teacher education and by in‐service teachers as a basis for planningchemistry lessons and reflecting on them, particularly with respect to the visual representations employed.