Abstract:

Visuospatial processing can be defined as the ability to represent, analyze and mentally manipulate objects to generate and transform both static and dynamic visual and spatial information. Visuospatial skills are very useful in everyday life. One can estimate the distance between two objects which can be very helpful when monitoring the space between an object and surrounding obstacles (for example, when parking a car) or to create mental pictures of would appear objects in different positions prior to move or rotate them. We also use visuospatial skills when imagining a place or address that someone mentions and the relative three-dimensional order of objects located in the place.

This ability is a key asset to study and understand concepts the health and natural sciences disciplines, and particularly in chemistry, where visual and spatial resources for explanation and communication of chemical concepts are continuously being employed and demanded. One of the reasons why visuospatial abilities play such an important role in chemistry is that people need the ability to actively maintain and manipulate visual representations in many chemistry contexts. For example, to visualize chemical reactions, chemists always sketch structures of reactants and products, and draw symbols, arrows, and equations to describe the transformations that take place. These chemical representations present the imagery of molecules or atoms in two dimensions but that, in fact, compose a spatial three-dimensional language that may not be easily understood. Therefore, being able to understand and to mentally manipulate chemical representations is critical for students to grasp the content of graduate courses and, in the future, conduct advanced scientific research.

In this paper, we examine the role of visuospatial perception in chemistry learning and will discuss on how to improve visuospatial abilities to help students to overcome common conceptual errors that may arise because of difficulties in using visuospatial representations. Some examples and activities aimed to learn visuospatial abilities through pictures and graphics and to make learning chemistry more appealing are also provided.

Keywords:

Chemistry, chemistry teaching, visuospatial thinking, graphical representations.