This study examines how computation can affect students’ blending of cognitive resources and their framing of mathematics in a chemical context. How students analytically and numerically interpret mathematical expressions in chemistry are examined through 14 individual clinical interviews with undergraduate chemistry students.
The analysis was done by performing a thematic analysis of the interviews through a theoretical lens provided by the blended processing framework. This analysis reveals that computation and iterative thinking might serve as a catalyst for conceptual understanding and blending of cognitive resources.
These findings suggest that we should evaluate how computational approaches could be leveraged to give students a better understanding of both mathematical models and the chemical concepts illustrated through these models.