Atom and molecule: upper secondary school French students’ representations in long-term memory

The purpose of this study is to highlight collectively assimilated knowledge by upper secondary school French students (grades 10 to12) and to identify and describe the students‘ representations and misconceptions related to the concepts of ‘atom’ and ‘molecule’. In order to understand assimilated knowledge better, the school science curricula and textbooks have been examined so as to identify the intended development of the conceptualisation of these concepts within the school curricula. This study is based on the written answers given by school students to four questions concerning these concepts, submitted a long time after the teaching has taken place. The analysis of the students‘ answers shows the various representations and misconceptions that concern the concepts of atom and molecule at each student level and allows us to see their evolution over these three years. Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2005, 6 (3), 119-135