Students’ chemical representation ability: A study on molecule shapes

The study aims to analyze the chemical representation ability of high school students on molecule shapes topic. The one-shot case study design was conducted. This design is one of single-group design in experimental research design. The posttest was given after did the treatment in learning process. Test of analytical thinking based on multiple representations (TAT-MR) that captures of four levels in chemical representation (macroscopic, microscopic, symbolic and mathematics) was used to assess the students’ ability. There were 13 items test that had good reliability. The TAT-MR was administered to 50 high school students drawn from senior high school in Pekanbaru, Indonesia. The result showed that students had a good ability on chemical representation skills with a percentage of 21.5 %. However, the students still had difficulty to show the microscopic representation and representation mathematic. Hence, the ability of high school students in chemical representation needs to be improved. This study suggests that multiple representations approach should be used in chemistry learning at high school.