Neuroscience Engagement: The Influences of Chemistry Education on Affective Dimensions - Affective Dimensions in Chemistry Education - page 244

Although this finding focuses on the gender differences in affective reflections in
CBA, it is an important reflection for all science education. The issue of gender
differences in science education, including chemistry education, has long been
discussed. Lieberman ( 2012 ) also mentioned that it is worth considering the
possibility that the social brain

s natural tendencies can be leveraged to enhance
classroom education. Most of the previous studies have focused on the discussion of
the cognitive process of learning. However, we would like to suggest further
research to consider the affective aspect of gender differences in science and/or
chemistry learning. As already mentioned, the affective dimension can decide
students ' intentional learning and learning directions. Based on the evidence from
neuroscience research, we therefore suggest that teachers should use different
strategies to improve male and female students

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positive affect and help them

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promote their learning gains.
Although the affective dimension of chemistry learning by combining neurosci-
ence methodologies is very important, there are also other cognitive dimensions
that affect chemistry learning. In recent years, many studies have investigated
learners

cognitive processing in science learning. It is important that these studies
about learning in science inform future studies about learning in chemistry. The
next section introduces those studies which have adopted neuroscience methodol-
ogies to explore representation in scientific learning.

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7 Representation and Beliefs in Chemistry Learning

Different representations in text may affect students problem solving, and the

application of intuitive rules to proportional reasoning may be enhanced when the
problems are presented in different representations (Liu & Shen, 2011 ). Take Liu
and Shen

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s study as an example; they adopted two kinds of representation of the
same problem (Fig. 17 ). One is the iconic form and the other is the symbolic form.
The participants in Liu and Shen ' s study were third and fifth grade students. Due
to the children

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s inability to express themselves clearly verbally, the researchers
combined eye tracking technology and interviews to explore the influences of
representation on the students

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learning (Fig. 18 ). The eye tracking technology is
also an important and novel neuroscience technology in the present day. In Fig. 18 ,
the results of their study indicated that representational types and scan paths appear

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Fig. 17 Samples of the same problem with different representations: the left is the iconic form and
the right is the symbolic form (Liu & Shen, 2011 )