© Division of Chemical Education •  www.JCE.DivCHED.org •  Vol. 85 No. 2 February 2008 •  Journal of Chemical Education 303 Research: Science and Education A variety of animations of microchemistry processes that depict the particulate nature of macroscopic chemical events have been developed in order to help students visualize mo- lecular structure and dynamics (1). Several studies (1–5) have suggested that chemistry students are better able to answer conceptual questions about particulate phenomena when they receive instruction that includes animations of these phenom- ena. In addition, Mayer and Anderson (6) showed that students viewing animations with narration were able to transfer their learning to solve problems in a new area immediately follow- ing the viewing of an animation. In this study the question of whether the learning that took place was suiciently meaningful that it could be transferred to new situations at a later point in time was investigated. According to Ormrod (7), when a student applies knowledge gained from previous experiences to learn or perform in a new situation, transfer is occurring. Similarly, Georghiades (8) suggests that transfer is “when a skill or concept is used to solve a diferent problem within a diferent setting”. Research by Jacobson and Archodidou (9) suggests that hy- permedia tools developed for case- and problem-centered learning help foster signiicant learning outcomes such as deep conceptual understanding, conceptual change, and knowledge transfer. How- ever, little research has focused on the extent to which students are able to transfer conceptual understanding of the particulate nature of matter gained from viewing animations of molecular processes to new situations. Some studies (10, 11) suggest that the abundance of information in an animation, especially if it is in the form of seductive detail, may have no beneicial teaching efect over equivalent static designs or may even be detrimental to the learning process. According to Tasker (12) students may develop simplistic or incomplete understanding of the particulate level of chemistry as a result of animations; such incomplete information may not be useful for interpreting other chemistry concepts. his study investigated how college-level general chemistry students who had viewed two video animations of molecular- level sodium chloride dissolution were able to transfer their understanding of salt dissolution one week later to describe a solution of aqueous sodium chloride used as a reactant presented in a video demonstration of a chemical reaction that resulted in the formation of a precipitate. Although the system was the same (a solution of sodium chloride in water), the situation in which it was used was diferent. Background In the irst phase of this research (13, 14), 18 students enrolled in general chemistry were shown two popular text- book animations of sodium chloride dissolution produced by VisChem (15) and Prentice Hall (16) ater each performed a hands-on activity of the same event. An analysis of the data showed that students incorporated some of the structural and functional features from the animation (Table 1) into their drawn explanations, and overall displayed fewer misconceptions than in their initial explanations. As displayed by their drawings (Table 1), most students recognized that spheres of hydration formed around each ion ater the salt was dissolved in water, and all 18 students showed the interaction of water molecules with the ions in their pictures. his paper focuses on the second phase of this study, in which these 18 students returned individually one week ater the irst phase of the study to view a video demonstration of a macroscopic precipitation reaction. he speciic research ques- tion investigated was: What features from their explanations of sodium chloride dissolution do students transfer into their explanations of the reactant solutions displayed in a video dem- onstration of a precipitation reaction? Investigating Students’ Ability To Transfer Ideas Learned from Molecular Animations of the Dissolution Process Resa M. Kelly* Department of Chemistry, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA 95192; *rkelly@science.sjsu.edu Loretta L. Jones Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO 80639 Chemical Education Research edited by Diane M. Bunce The Catholic University of America Washington, DC 20064 Table 1. Example Drawings of NaCl(aq) Made after Viewing Animations of Microscopic NaCl Dissolution Students Microscopic Drawings Bear Cougar Junebug Seal