Textbook Representations of Chemical Bonding: Insights from Czechia, Norway, and Turkey

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article analyses textbooks from three countries with respect to their discussion of chemical bonding. The general endeavor of a cross-country collaboration is interesting and adds to important discussion on the research-practice gap. In the following, I raise a few points of possible improvement. Overall, I recommend this article to be reconsidered after major revision. 

First, I think more recent literature must be incorporated. I find the idea of looking at the recommendations of Taber and Coll 25 years after their publications interesting. However, I only began to find it interesting in the discussion section when the authors pointed out to me that this meant that textbook authors had plenty of time to implement them. In the presentation of the recommendations in the Introduction and background section, I found it strange to see such old recommendations as a focus. Maybe this motivation can be made a bit clearer. However, even if the goal was to look at recommendations that were made 25 years ago to provide sufficient time for implementation, the discussion of the remaining literature could still be more recent. The article cites Hunter et al., 2022 as a recent review, which is great, but nearly all other literature cited is more than 10 years old (as one example for a more recent manuscript, see van Dulmen et al., 2023). I am mainly bringing this up because one of the review criteria of this specific journal is "Are most of the cited references recently published (within the last 5 years) and relevant?". 

Second, the discussion of the octet rule is at times a bit oversimplifying. I mean by this that it is not only a question of whether a textbook uses the octet rule at all, but rather how. Specifically, how is the use of models in chemistry discussed in these textbooks? Does it become clear that the octet rule is one model that works in very specific situations? On p. 15, the authors write that "we observed three explanatory models for chemical bonding: the octet rule, an electrical ([...]) attraction model, and the orbital model, which were often used in combination". This in and of itself I do not see as a bad thing - as long as the modelling is introduced as such and the models are clearly distinguished. 

Third, the manuscript does a great job at pointing out and explaining the research-practice gap. It would be fantastic, if some recommendations for how to move forward could be made. For example, should more chemistry education researchers be part of the textbook writing process (as the analysis finds that the textbook most aligned with the recommendations was co-written by a chemistry education researcher)? 

Finally, I believe that the article would benefit a lot from visualisations of the findings. While the findings are provided in table form in the supplementary material, it is currently hard for the reader to make comparisons across countries or recommendations. 

Smaller points: 

Tables are often labeled as Table X instead of Table SX. 

Be mindful of different meanings of electric and electronic interactions. 

Mentioned references: 

van Dulmen, T. H., Visser, T. C., Coenders, F. G., Pepin, B., & McKenney, S. (2023). Learning to teach chemical bonding: a framework for preservice teacher educators. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 24(3), 896-913.

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewers,

 

Thank you for the many valuable comments. They have helped us improve our manuscript, for which we are thankful. Below you will find a point-by-point response to each of the reviewers’ reports.

Reviewer 1

 

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article analyses textbooks from three countries with respect to their discussion of chemical bonding. The general endeavor of a cross-country collaboration is interesting and adds to important discussion on the research-practice gap.

Response: Thank you for this encouraging comment.

In the following, I raise a few points of possible improvement. Overall, I recommend this article to be reconsidered after major revision.

First, I think more recent literature must be incorporated. I find the idea of looking at the recommendations of Taber and Coll 25 years after their publications interesting. However, I only began to find it interesting in the discussion section when the authors pointed out to me that this meant that textbook authors had plenty of time to implement them. In the presentation of the recommendations in the Introduction and background section, I found it strange to see such old recommendations as a focus. Maybe this motivation can be made a bit clearer.

Response: Thank you for making this important point. We have now added text on p. 3 and 5 to make this point more explicit from the beginning.

However, even if the goal was to look at recommendations that were made 25 years ago to provide sufficient time for implementation, the discussion of the remaining literature could still be more recent. The article cites Hunter et al., 2022 as a recent review, which is great, but nearly all other literature cited is more than 10 years old (as one example for a more recent manuscript, see van Dulmen et al., 2023). I am mainly bringing this up because one of the review criteria of this specific journal is "Are most of the cited references recently published (within the last 5 years) and relevant?".

Response: We thank the reviewer for this valuable suggestion. In the revised manuscript, we have incorporated recent literature on the teaching and learning of chemical bonding (Hunter et al., 2022; Çalık et al., 2024; van Dulmen et al., 2023) and clarified in Section 1.2 that Taber (2002) and Taber & Coll's (2002) recommendations serve as a long-standing, research-informed benchmark for evaluating the extent to which textbook authors have incorporated established recommendations over the past two decades. This rationale is now also presented in the Introduction and Background section.

 

1.2. Recommendations for teaching chemical bonding

…..

…

Among the foundational contributions to research on chemical bonding education, Taber (2002) and Taber & Coll (2002) synthesised evidence on common student difficulties and proposed a series of recommendations to improve the teaching and presentation of chemical bonding concepts. Their work has been highly influential in shaping subsequent research and curriculum discussions on chemical bonding.

 

Although these recommendations were formulated more than two decades ago, many of the challenges identified by Taber and Coll remain evident in contemporary research. A comprehensive review of research on the teaching and learning of chemical bonding by Hunter et al. (2022) highlighted persistent student difficulties in understanding the nature of chemical bonds. Similarly, a meta-analysis by Çalık et al. (2024) demonstrated that instructional interventions specifically designed to address students’ understanding of chemical bonding have a significant positive effect on academic achievement, suggesting that the conceptual challenges associated with chemical bonding continue to warrant educational attention.

 

The ongoing relevance of these issues makes Taber and Coll's (2002) recommendations particularly suitable as an analytical framework for the present study. Rather than treating these recommendations solely as historical contributions, this study uses them as a well-established set of research-informed criteria for examining contemporary textbook presentations of chemical bonding. Given that more than two decades have passed since their publication, textbook authors have had considerable opportunity to incorporate research-based guidance into instructional materials. Consequently, examining the extent to which these recommendations are reflected in current textbooks provides valuable insights into how educational research translates into classroom resources.

 

Hunter, K. H., Rodriguez, J.-M. G., & Becker, N. M. (2022). A Review of Research on the Teaching and Learning of Chemical Bonding. Journal of Chemical Education, 99(7), 2451–2464. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.2c00034

Çalik, M., Ültay, N., Bag, H., & Ayas, A. (2024). A meta-analysis of effectiveness of chemical bonding-based intervention studies in improving academic performance. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 25(1), 506–523. https://doi.org/10.1039/D3RP00258F

Taber, K. S., & Coll, R. K. (2002). Bonding. In J. K. Gilbert (Ed.), Chemical education: Towards research-based practice (Vol. 17, pp. 213–234). Kluwer Academic Publishers.

van Dulmen, T. H., Visser, T. C., Coenders, F. G., Pepin, B., & McKenney, S. (2023). Learning to teach chemical bonding: a framework for preservice teacher educators. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 24(3), 896-913.

 

Second, the discussion of the octet rule is at times a bit oversimplifying. I mean by this that it is not only a question of whether a textbook uses the octet rule at all, but rather how. Specifically, how is the use of models in chemistry discussed in these textbooks? Does it become clear that the octet rule is one model that works in very specific situations? On p. 15, the authors write that "we observed three explanatory models for chemical bonding: the octet rule, an electrical ([...]) attraction model, and the orbital model, which were often used in combination". This in and of itself I do not see as a bad thing - as long as the modelling is introduced as such and the models are clearly distinguished.

Response: We have discussed the use of the octet rule under two categories, no. 2 and 3. For category 2, Teach bonds as electrical concepts, the issue is how chemical bonding is explained. The recommendation is that bonding is explained as electric attraction between particles. The octet rule uses a model of the atom to illustrate the filling up of electron shells, but should not be used to EXPLAIN bonding (p. 12). For category 3, Do not treat chemical bonding as a magical or social concept or use anthropomorphic language, we refer to the octet rule because it is often used with anthropomorphic language (atoms having a desire etc. to fill their electron shells) (p. 12). The text quoted above from p. 15 is simply to state that three explanatory models were observed. 

For our scoring system, we have given the score “Contradictory mention” when electrical attraction is combined with the octet rule (p. 14). We do not point to a general use of the octet rule as a problem in itself, if its limitations were also discussed, but specifically when it is used to EXPLAIN why bonds are formed. Using the octet rule as an explanation implicitly gives the impression atoms have their own will, and that the driving force behind bond making is this will. This is what Taber and colleagues have addressed in their research and recommendations for teaching.

We maintain that the way we have addressed the use of the octet rule in the textbooks is not simplified, but deals with specific uses as EXPLANATION and through ANTHROPOMORPHIC language, not as a “rule of thumb” in practical teaching.

To make our point more clear, we have added a sentence.on p. 12 (under Category 2). We have also added “To sum up” to the sentence referred above on p. 16, to more clearly show that this is simply a summary of which models we observed in the textbooks - this sentence does not imply any specific assessment of the three mentioned models.

 

Third, the manuscript does a great job at pointing out and explaining the research-practice gap. It would be fantastic, if some recommendations for how to move forward could be made. For example, should more chemistry education researchers be part of the textbook writing process (as the analysis finds that the textbook most aligned with the recommendations was co-written by a chemistry education researcher)?

Response: Thank you very much for this very important comment. We have added a sentence at the end of our conclusion on p. 20, which addresses this point. Also, following a comment by reviewer 2 about the same point, we have slightly rewritten one of the paragraphs in the discussion section, on p. 20. We have also added a bullet point in the conclusion.

Finally, I believe that the article would benefit a lot from visualisations of the findings. While the findings are provided in table form in the supplementary material, it is currently hard for the reader to make comparisons across countries or recommendations.

Response: Thank you for this comment. We have now inserted Figure 3 on p. 13 to visualise overall results for all countries and all categories.

Smaller points:

Tables are often labeled as Table X instead of Table SX.

Response: Thank you for making us aware of this. We have now corrected this.

Be mindful of different meanings of electric and electronic interactions.

Response: Thank you for prompting us to check how we use the terms “electric”, “electrical”, “electronic” and “electrostatic” in the text. Upon searching for these terms, we could not find any misuse of “electronic” or “electrostatic”, however we realized that we had not been consistent between the forms “electric” and “electrical”. Hence, we changed six “electric” to “electrical”. (p.4, line 154, p.10, Table 2, p. 12, lines 377,383, 386, p. 15, line 517).

Mentioned references:

van Dulmen, T. H., Visser, T. C., Coenders, F. G., Pepin, B., & McKenney, S. (2023). Learning to teach chemical bonding: a framework for preservice teacher educators. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 24(3), 896-913.

Response: We have now referred to this work in our article.

 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The work presented is coherent, and contributes relevant empirical evidence to an established line of research, using Taber’s (2001) research as a robust analytical framework. The study addresses an important question in chemistry (or in general, science) education research on the persistence of misconceptions and bad representations in textbooks or instructional materials. The context of the reseach is clear and limitations are also clear. However, the manuscript in its current form requires a small revision or clarification. My main concerns relate to: (1) absence of inter-rater reliability data; (2) a discussion section that raises explanatory hypotheses but does not engage sufficiently and (3) usual minor revisions and data visualization. 

1) Methodology - A weakness, in my opinion, is the absence of inter-rater reliability data. As the content analysis of textbook was conducted by pairs on 3 countries, a Cohen’s kappa, percentage agreement, or equivalent statistic should be expected. If a statistical report is not possible, then the authors should provide a substantive methodological argument for why the collaborative codification is sufficient. Inner country teams reached an agreement, so we can assume the agreement reached 100%, but between countries "teams convened to review the results, resolve areas of uncertainty, and refine the categorical framework", and a little more explanation about this uncertainties discussion amd the final reliability or agreement could improve the text.

2) Discussion - The observation that the Norwegian textbook most closely aligned with the recommendations was co-authored by someone with a chemistry education background is interesting, but is presented as anecdotal rather than as evidence for a generalizable claim or exploratory clue about author expertise and textbook quality (I personally think is a really interesting finding for future research). The authors acknowledge in the Conclusions that novel approaches “have not been incorporated into textbooks”, but this finding could be influenced by the choice of framework (justified in the introduction) rather than empirically. The categories used allow us to see if recent alternatives are present? 

3) Minor revisions - The Results section is structured by coding category, which is appropriate and the authors present numerous illustrative quotations from individual textbooks, but these are not pictured within the broader distribution of scores. The reader has to piece together the full picture by moving between the narrative text and the supplementary tables S1-S7, which makes comparative reading slow and/or confusing. To address this, I suggest including a summary figure or infography in the body of the article. For example, a % stacked horizontal bar chart would be effective, and readers could immediately compare the proportion of "in accordance", "not in accordance", "contradictory mention", and "not covered" scores across countries and categories while reading quotes or sections. 

Some in-text citations appear to be duplicated in the reference list; e.g., Levy Nahum et al. (2010) appears twice, lines 905-907 and if this Nahum is the same as Nahum from line 922, it shows with two or one surnames in different cited name versions.

In closing, the reviewer wishes to acknowledge the substantial collaborative effort that this manuscript represents. The concerns raised in this review are intended constructively, and this manuscript has the potential to make a valuable contribution to the chemistry education literature.

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewers,

Thank you for the many valuable comments. They have helped us improve our manuscript, for which we are thankful. Below you will find a point-by-point response to each of the reviewers’ reports.

 

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The work presented is coherent, and contributes relevant empirical evidence to an established line of research, using Taber’s (2001) research as a robust analytical framework. The study addresses an important question in chemistry (or in general, science) education research on the persistence of misconceptions and bad representations in textbooks or instructional materials. The context of the reseach is clear and limitations are also clear.

Response: Thank you.

 However, the manuscript in its current form requires a small revision or clarification. My main concerns relate to: (1) absence of inter-rater reliability data; (2) a discussion section that raises explanatory hypotheses but does not engage sufficiently and (3) usual minor revisions and data visualization.

1) Methodology - A weakness, in my opinion, is the absence of inter-rater reliability data. As the content analysis of textbook was conducted by pairs on 3 countries, a Cohen’s kappa, percentage agreement, or equivalent statistic should be expected. If a statistical report is not possible, then the authors should provide a substantive methodological argument for why the collaborative codification is sufficient. Inner country teams reached an agreement, so we can assume the agreement reached 100%, but between countries "teams convened to review the results, resolve areas of uncertainty, and refine the categorical framework", and a little more explanation about this uncertainties discussion amd the final reliability or agreement could improve the text.

Response: Thank you for this comment. We have now added more information and examples from the discussions on p.9. As for statistics or tests to demonstrate inter-rater reliability, we emphasize that this is a relevant quality measure mainly within a positivist/post-positivist paradigm to which we do not subscribe. Rather, our approach is aligned with a constructivist framework, where the focus is not on the number of occurrences in each category but rather what meaning we can ascribe to the studied textbook passages. We have, however, added some more information about the coding process and how the discussions between the authors led to refinement of the coding scheme and adjustment of codes within country teams.

2) Discussion - The observation that the Norwegian textbook most closely aligned with the recommendations was co-authored by someone with a chemistry education background is interesting, but is presented as anecdotal rather than as evidence for a generalizable claim or exploratory clue about author expertise and textbook quality (I personally think is a really interesting finding for future research).

Response: Thank you very much for encouraging us to more strongly highlight this point. This was also remarked by reviewer 1. Consequently, we have added a sentence and rewritten slightly one paragraph on p. 20 in the discussion, and also added some sentences at the end of the conclusion, on p. 20.

The authors acknowledge in the Conclusions that novel approaches “have not been incorporated into textbooks”, but this finding could be influenced by the choice of framework (justified in the introduction) rather than empirically. The categories used allow us to see if recent alternatives are present?

Response: Thank you for this comment, which prompted us to rethink our conclusions. We agree that our framework does not allow us to convincingly assess the presence or non-presence of novel approaches. Consequently, the second bullet point has been removed. We have also deleted text that discussed some of these novel approaches, following reviewer 3, who also remarked that these were off-topic.

3) Minor revisions - The Results section is structured by coding category, which is appropriate and the authors present numerous illustrative quotations from individual textbooks, but these are not pictured within the broader distribution of scores. The reader has to piece together the full picture by moving between the narrative text and the supplementary tables S1-S7, which makes comparative reading slow and/or confusing. To address this, I suggest including a summary figure or infography in the body of the article. For example, a % stacked horizontal bar chart would be effective, and readers could immediately compare the proportion of "in accordance", "not in accordance", "contradictory mention", and "not covered" scores across countries and categories while reading quotes or sections.

Response: We agree, and this was also remarked by the other reviewers. Consequently, we have added Figure 3  on p. 13 in the main text, showing overall results for all countries and all categories.

Some in-text citations appear to be duplicated in the reference list; e.g., Levy Nahum et al. (2010) appears twice, lines 905-907 and if this Nahum is the same as Nahum from line 922, it shows with two or one surnames in different cited name versions.

Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have deleted the duplicated reference, and we have corrected Nahum to Levy Nahum, acknowledging that this is indeed the same author.

In closing, the reviewer wishes to acknowledge the substantial collaborative effort that this manuscript represents. The concerns raised in this review are intended constructively, and this manuscript has the potential to make a valuable contribution to the chemistry education literature.

Response: Thank you very much. Your comments were very helpful during the revision process and contributed to improving the manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The present work addresses the crucial issue of the application of the research findings of science education, which must be one of the goals of educational research itself. Analyses of textbooks is a helpful tool for evaluating the degree to which educational research is applied in the development of school textbooks. This work represents a through examination of currently utilized school textbooks in three European countries, in the framework of the last thirty years educational research findings.  It was not difficult to follow the authors in all sections of the paper, because of the overall clarity and the comprehensibility of it. However, there are a few minor issues that I would be grateful if the authors could address
1-In the introduction and discussion sections there several references to papers that address the research question of how to explain the chemical bond but only a few references to similar research work, in other words are there in literature other works that are focused on similar research questions, namely  To what extent (if any) and in what way are the presentations of the topic in text in line with recommendations from research?
2- In the conclusions section (page 20, lines 750-771) the authors argued about and proposed a further way of explaining the chemical bond. In my opinion the authors' suggestion is off topic and should be developed in another work and the discussion about chemical bond as an emergent property should be moved to introduction section.

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewers,

Thank you for the many valuable comments. They have helped us improve our manuscript, for which we are thankful. Below you will find a point-by-point response to each of the reviewers’ reports.

 

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The present work addresses the crucial issue of the application of the research findings of science education, which must be one of the goals of educational research itself. Analyses of textbooks is a helpful tool for evaluating the degree to which educational research is applied in the development of school textbooks. This work represents a through examination of currently utilized school textbooks in three European countries, in the framework of the last thirty years educational research findings.  It was not difficult to follow the authors in all sections of the paper, because of the overall clarity and the comprehensibility of it.

Response: Thank you!

However, there are a few minor issues that I would be grateful if the authors could address

1-In the introduction and discussion sections there several references to papers that address the research question of how to explain the chemical bond but only a few references to similar research work, in other words are there in literature other works that are focused on similar research questions, namely  To what extent (if any) and in what way are the presentations of the topic in text in line with recommendations from research?

Response: Thank you very much for encouraging us to search for similar research. We have now included a reference to one more paper that focus on a similar research question on p.1, line 41. This is : Yang, M., Armpriest, B. C., Wright, L. K., & Newman, D. L. (2025). Visual representations of energy and chemical bonding in biology and chemistry textbooks: A case study of ATP hydrolysis. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 53(3), 274–285. https://doi.org/10.1002/bmb.21894

 

2- In the conclusions section (page 20, lines 750-771) the authors argued about and proposed a further way of explaining the chemical bond. In my opinion the authors' suggestion is off topic and should be developed in another work and the discussion about chemical bond as an emergent property should be moved to introduction section.

Response: Thank you for these comments. Upon revisiting the text, we agree and we have now deleted this section of the manuscript.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have sufficiently addressed all of my concerns. I am particularly grateful for the clarification of the distinction between the use of models such as the octet rules and the use with the specific function to explain the phenomenon. 

I recommend this article to be accepted.