3D Object-Based Card-Sorting: A Method for Eliciting Multimodal Reasoning in Chemistry

This contribution introduces 3D object-based card sorting as a novel method for eliciting and analyzing students’ multimodal reasoning in chemistry. Building on traditional card sort methodologies, this approach incorporates manipulable molecular models (either physical or virtual) to explore how students reason about spatially complex concepts, such as molecular symmetry. We describe the task design, illustrate its potential through sample student excerpts, and evaluate its methodological integrity using the Journal Article Reporting Standards for Qualitative Research in Psychology. The sorting interviews generated rich, multimodal data, including gestures, model manipulation, and verbal reasoning. While the method captures fine-grained, process-level reasoning, it also affords insights at a coarser grain size, supporting inferences about students’ conceptual and epistemological resources as they categorize. This work demonstrates how 3D object-based card sorting can make students’ reasoning more visible and analyzable, offering new opportunities for research on spatial thinking, representation use, and embodied cognition in chemistry. We conclude by outlining implications for both research and classroom applications.