It is common to say that the complex and the abstract nature of chemistry make the study of the subject difficult for students. Conceptual understanding in chemistry includes the ability to represent and translate chemical problems using macroscopic, submicroscopic, and symbolic forms of representation. At the macroscopic level, chemistry involves the observable phenomena including references to students’ everyday experiences. To the better explanation of these phenomena, chemists develop concepts and models of atoms and molecules. From the observations of changes that occur at the macroscopic level, students have to explain these changes at the molecular (particulate) level. Teachers use pictures, symbols, and models to present scientific ideas, and instructional materials include text, photos and various representations to illustrate scientific content. Students are often not able to translate one given representation into another due to their limited conceptual knowledge and poor visual–spatial ability. The confusion caused in having to deal simultaneously with the macroscopic, submicroscopic and symbolic levels of representation in chemistry make student having to misconception chemistry concepts. Chemistry teachers, when presenting chemistry concepts, should more frequently combine the three levels: macro-, sub-micro-, and the symbolic level and more efficiently link the students’ pre-knowledge with the new topics. Some media used to represent multiple level representations is hypermedia based chemistry learning, the use of multi-media software and computer animations, etc.

Keywords: impact, multiple level representations-based learning, chemistry