Qualitatively different ways of unpacking visual representations when teaching intermolecular forces in upper secondary school

Abstract

Since visual representations play a particularly important role in the teaching and learning of chemistry, the ex-ploration described in this article focuses on them. This is an explorative study of the qualitatively different ways that visual representations can be unpacked by Swedish upper secondary school chemistry teachers dealing with intermolecular forces. Unpacking is characterized as the ways that visual representations get used to open up the possibility of having the critical aspects and features of an intended object of learning being brought into focal awareness, initially on their own and then simultaneously.