Using Stop Motion Animations to Activate and Analyze High School Students’ Intuitive Resources about Reaction Mechanisms

Mechanisms are part of the high school curriculum in many countries. Although research shows that university students struggle with mechanistic reasoning, very little is known about learning mechanisms school. Understanding cognitive resources intuitively activate critical to fostering meaningful learning. A readily available tool for modeling dynamic processes stop-motion animations (SMAs). In this study, 55 were asked create SMAs their intuitive ideas nucleophilic substitution reactions. a second step, evaluated two pre-made textbook-based stepwise (SN1) and concerted (SN2) mechanisms. Within student-generated SMAs, SN1- SN2-like equally distributed; after viewing textbook-style animations, most rated an SN2 mechanism as more likely. However, no group modeled both types or reasoned possible. Students used diverse chemical concepts well plausibility reasoning. simultaneous movement atoms, conformational changes, idea competing boundary do not seem intuitive. conclusion, found be appropriate activating, analyzing, discussing students’ “on fly”, these can serve starting point promoting productive