Students' abilities of reading images in general chemistry: The case of realistic, conventional and hybrid images

This research deals with students' abilities to read chemistry textbook images about dispersed systems. Secondary school students were included as the research participants, and their abilities to propose the titles of the realistic, conventional, and hybrid textbook images about dispersed systems, were analyzed. Additionally, their written interpretations about images contents were also analyzed. The collected data provided information about students' misunderstandings about dispersed systems. These misunderstandings, some of which are the original outcome of this research, provided the significant results. In addition, it was found that students had the most difficulties with reading realistic textbook images. Namely, they relied on what they literally saw on the realistic image (i.e. photography) without providing proper connection with chemical contents about dispersed systems.