Heuristics? What about them? - Review on the operation of heuristics in chemical education in the past two decades

Heuristics are evident in students’ reasoning processes in chemical education. This review of heuristics is a novel attempt to understand the use of heuristics in chemical education in the last two decades. Searches across four databases resulted in 21374 raw hits and an ultimate sample of 27 screened articles. We performed a content analysis on three goals--How has the definition of heuristics operationalized in these studies, what different chemical topics and tasks have been linked to the types of heuristics, and the different interventions explored in such heuristic studies. Our review reveals a lack of consistent defining features of heuristics in the chemical education field, an inclination towards ranking and comparison tasks and organic-inorganic chemistry topics, and a lack of sufficient research dedicated towards heuristic refinement in students. Our review restates the need to bridge the gap between research and practice of heuristics in chemical education.