Charlotte H. Müller

Last Name

Müller

First Name

Charlotte H.

ORCID

0000-0002-6640-5065

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09812 - Rau, Martina / Rau, Martina

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Publications 1 - 10 of 17

Instructional Analogies Dominate, Domain-Inherent Metaphors Are Overlooked: A Systematic Review of Metaphorical Mappings in Chemistry Education
Müller, Charlotte H.; Rau, Martina A. (2025)
Journal of Chemical Education
Metaphors play a central role in our language. Likewise, they are ubiquitous in the language related to imperceptible concepts including many chemical concepts. The present systematic review investigates what metaphorical mappings chemistry education research has examined. Specifically, we distinguish between instructional analogies designed for learning and domain-inherent metaphors present in chemical discourse. We pose the research questions: (i) what types of metaphorical mappings are present in chemistry education research and (ii) what the main findings of this research are. We find that instructional analogies are the focus of most research on metaphorical mappings with a special emphasis on two target concepts: atomic structure and chemical reactivity. Most analogies aimed to either make these concepts more tangible or to relate them to the specific lived experience of the students. Research on domain-inherent metaphors is limited to the analysis of conceptual metaphors that experts or students employ during problem-solving and textbook analyses, all related to entropy. We conclude that the source domain needs to be accessible to the learner and that they need to be aware of the limitations. One way to ensure that is by introducing multiple analogies. However, given the gaps we uncovered in this review, we recommend that future research should focus on a more comprehensive analysis of metaphorical mappings inherent to chemical discourse and their impact on learning processes.
Towards a taxonomy of concreteness and abstraction in mathematics education
Chatain, Julia; Müller, Charlotte H.; Chatain, Keny; et al. (2025)
The words concrete and abstract are extensively used in mathematics education as re searchers aim to better understand how concrete examples support or hinder learning of mathematics. However, it is often unclear what is meant by concrete or abstract, and researchers have called for a finer-grained semantic framework. Indeed, concrete could mean familiar, tangible, or specific, while abstract could mean meaningless, ideal, or universal. This is important as different aspects of concreteness and abstraction may support different learning mechanisms. In this work, we follow a data-driven qualitative approach over 318 articles and a total of 3717 paragraphs including morphologically related words of abstract and concrete. Through this process, we (1) highlight the existence of a verbal dispute, that is a semantic disagreement within the field, and (2) start resolving this dispute by offering a multi-dimensional taxonomy accounting for the various meanings of concrete and abstract in mathematics education. We believe this work contributes to theory, to better situate research on the role of concreteness in mathematics education, and to practice, by supporting actionable design guidelines.
Inclusive Movement: Rethinking Physical Engagement in Science Classrooms
Müller, Charlotte H.; Paksoy, Ipek; Wang, Fan; et al. (2025)
Science education includes many physical learning activities designed to support learning. Students inevitably move when they participate in laboratory experiments, excursions, or if they are animated to move in a certain way that is supposed to promote learning. However, most research focuses on normative physical bodies and interpersonal relationships and thus unintentionally or implicitly excludes many students who are unwilling to perform certain actions as they may feel uncomfortable doing so. For instance, one may be an introvert and/or afraid of being observed. Some learners may have body-related trauma that makes them deeply distressed with certain activities, and others might simply be less athletic or less confident in taking up space than their peers. Finally, some bodies may be prohibited from performing certain actions due to physical disabilities. In this exploratory seminar, we invite researchers and educators who design physical activities of any form for students. Together, we want to explore what we need to know about students, and their bodies, for the design process, and what we can offer to students who might not be comfortable with the designed activity without isolating them.
The Multiple Student Conceptions of the Chemical Bond in a Quantum Chemical Context
Müller, Charlotte H.; Reiher, Markus; Kapur, Manu (2024)
Journal of Chemical Education
The chemical bond is described with various context-sensitive models ranging from two electrons being shared between nuclei to the minimum-energy distance between the atoms. How we visualize these bonds further primes students to select one model over another. Previous research has targeted misconceptions of the chemical bond, but how they interact and evolve remains relatively underexplored. In this work, we examine the diversity of conceptions in bachelor’s chemistry students who have started to learn about quantum chemistry. We present results of a thematic analysis of data produced by bachelor students at different stages in their studies while interacting with a chemical simulation triangulated with a metaphor analysis of interviews with students taking a quantum chemistry lecture. We found that the chemical bond was largely conceptualized either as a rigid entity or in relation to energy in writing and informally metaphorically as community. We argue that while these conceptualizations are valid models, the students struggle to understand the contextual dependency and the plurality of different models.
SCINE Interactive: A quantum-based virtual learning environment for chemistry with haptic feedback
Müller, Charlotte H.; Kapur, Manu; Reiher, Markus (2022)
Embodied preparation for learning basic quantum chemistry: A mixed‐method study
Müller, Charlotte H.; Reiher, Markus; Kapur, Manu (2024)
Journal of computer assisted learning
Background:Haptic feedback has been shown to be an effective facilitator of thelearning of scientific concepts in a series of studies. However, little is known aboutthe underlying salient learning mechanisms, which are activated when learning fromhaptic feedback.Objectives:We investigate the learning mechanism in a higher chemistry educationsetting, in which the students learned about the abstract concept of potential energyin a quantum chemical context.Methods:In this work, we present a mixed-methods problem-solving prior to instruc-tion (PS-I) study with chemistry bachelor students. In an interactive quantum chemis-try learning environment, the students explored the energetic profiles of nucleophilicsubstitution reactions and the corresponding activation barriers experienced as repul-sion and attraction. We measured cognitive and affective mechanisms which havebeen shown to be activated in PS-I designs, such as knowledge gap awareness, statecuriosity, and positive affect as well as the learning outcome quantitatively and thelearning trajectories qualitatively.Results and Conclusions:Planned contrasts revealed a small hindering effect of thehaptic feedback on the learning outcome. Thematic analysis of the qualitative datalets us attribute this effect to the lack of scaffolding of the haptic feedback and thespontaneous atomic movements in the simulation, which may be interpreted as avisual representation of force in itself.This work highlights the importance of accurate mappings of the haptic feedbackunto the target domain and further delivers insight into the prior conceptions ofchemistry undergraduate students.
SCINE-Software for chemical interaction networks
Weymuth, Thomas; Unsleber, Jan Patrick; Türtscher, Paul Lorenz; et al. (2024)
The Journal of Chemical Physics
The software for chemical interaction networks (SCINE) project aims at pushing the frontier of quantum chemical calculations on molecular structures to a new level. While calculations on individual structures as well as on simple relations between them have become routine in chemistry, new developments have pushed the frontier in the field to high-throughput calculations. Chemical relations may be created by a search for specific molecular properties in a molecular design attempt, or they can be defined by a set of elementary reaction steps that form a chemical reaction network. The software modules of SCINE have been designed to facilitate such studies. The features of the modules are (i) general applicability of the applied methodologies ranging from electronic structure (no restriction to specific elements of the periodic table) to microkinetic modeling (with little restrictions on molecularity), full modularity so that SCINE modules can also be applied as stand-alone programs or be exchanged for external software packages that fulfill a similar purpose (to increase options for computational campaigns and to provide alternatives in case of tasks that are hard or impossible to accomplish with certain programs), (ii) high stability and autonomous operations so that control and steering by an operator are as easy as possible, and (iii) easy embedding into complex heterogeneous environments for molecular structures taken individually or in the context of a reaction network. A graphical user interface unites all modules and ensures interoperability. All components of the software have been made available as open source and free of charge.
Embodied Quantum Chemistry Learning from Haptic Feedback
Müller, Charlotte H. (2023)
Chemistry in general and quantum chemistry in particular are difficult to learn due to many domain-specific concepts such as chemical bonds or electronic energy being imperceptible. Therefore, learners cannot directly connect these concepts to prior experience. It was demonstrated that haptic feedback has the potential to be an effective facilitator for learning of such scientific concepts. However, while overall, emotional results are positive, cognitive or performance-related results remain ambiguous. Furthermore, little is known about the underlying salient learning mechanisms which are activated when learning from haptic feedback. That is to say, it is unclear how haptic feedback facilitates learning. In this thesis, we present a learning environment that consists of a graphical as well as a haptic user interface and that exploits multiple multimodal representations for embodied learning. We present four studies. First, bachelor students tested the environment in a usability study. The optimized learning environment was then applied in two learning studies, in which we investigated the effect of haptic feedback on salient learning mechanisms and learning outcome in second- and fourth-semester students. Finally, the results of these studies inspired a follow-up study, in the scope of which we investigated the effect of explicit metaphorical explanation on the outcome. The learning studies all followed a problem-solving prior to instruction design. In contrast to instruction-first approaches, the problem-solving allowed the students to first interact with and reflect on the target concept before receiving explicit instruction. We find that haptic feedback is hindering if the embodied experience is not successfully mapped to the target concept by the students. We attribute this effect to the distraction from the available and generally well understood visual representations by the haptic feedback. We argue that by receiving an explicit explanation of the target conceptual metaphor Reactions are Hiking over a Mountain, the students will benefit more from the haptic feedback. This hypothesis is reinforced by increased curiosity, positive affect and perceived relevance observed within the group that participated in an embodied experience coupled with such a metaphorical explanation. The difference in performance was not statistically significant. Finally, the aggregated qualitative data of all studies provide a summary of student conceptions of the chemical bond concept. We find that students mostly conceptualized the chemical bond as physical entity or related to energy. We further conclude that the students encounter difficulties in understanding the contextual dependence of the decision when to utilize which model.
Facilitating Learning of Quantum Chemical Concepts through Grounding in Sensory Experience
Müller, Charlotte H. (2022)
Heron: Visualizing and Controlling Chemical Reaction Explorations and Networks
Müller, Charlotte H.; Steiner, Miguel; Unsleber, Jan Patrick; et al. (2024)
The Journal of Physical Chemistry A
Automated and high-throughput quantum chemical investigations into chemical processes have become feasible in great detail and broad scope. This results in an increase in complexity of the tasks and in the amount of generated data. An efficient and intuitive way for an operator to interact with these data and to steer virtual experiments is required. Here, we introduce Heron, a graphical user interface that allows for advanced human-machine interactions with quantum chemical exploration campaigns into molecular structure and reactivity. Heron offers access to interactive and automated explorations of chemical reactions with standard electronic structure modules, haptic force feedback, microkinetic modeling, and refinement of data by automated correlated calculations including black-box complete active space calculations. It is tailored to the exploration and analysis of vast chemical reaction networks. We show how interoperable modules enable advanced workflows and pave the way for routine low-entrance-barrier access to advanced modeling techniques.

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Charlotte H. Müller

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