Abstract
This study analyzed survey results on science and engineering university students’ understanding of basic knowledge and elementary concepts in chemistry, focusing on the particle concept. We identified the causes of university students’ errors as follows: (i) Many misunderstandings were accompanied by a naive concept regarding size perception of the filter paper’ s mesh and particles such as molecules and ions; (ii) naive concepts regarding the presence of air or other gases between particles and the avoidance of a vacuum are common; (iii) naive concepts of homogeneous mixing by diffusion were also identified; and (iv) it was found that textbook descriptions do not contain sufficient explanations to rectify the naive concepts.
