• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.28-36
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• 2007

This study investigated the influences of small group discussion and students' visual learning style in learning chemical concepts with drawing and writing as methods to assist students in connecting and integrating multiple external representations. Seventh graders (N=449) at a coed middle school were assigned to individual drawing (ID), pair drawing (PD), individual writing (IW), and pair writing (PW) groups. All students learned "Boyle's Law" and "Charles's Law" for two class periods. Analyses of the results revealed that the students in the PD group, regardless of students' visual learning style, scored significantly higher than those in the ID group in a conception test. The scores of the students with strong visual learning preference in the PW group were significantly higher than those in the IW group in the conception test, while the scores of the students with weak visual learning preference were not significantly different between the two groups. Although the conception test scores of the PD group were higher than those of the PW group, the difference was relatively small. It was found that most students in both PD and PW groups perceived pair drawing and pair writing positively upon cognitive and motivational aspects.