As a branch of chemistry, the chemistry education research involves the fields of chemistry education practice and pedagogy. It aims to explore appropriate educational theories and approaches, to guide chemistry education practice, and to improve the quality of secondary school chemistry education.

In recent years, the latest high school chemistry curriculum standards have ushered in a new round of revisions in order to better practise the nation-level educational policy, and to promote the construction and reform of basic education chemistry curriculum. The Ministry of Education issued the "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Comprehensively Deepening the Reform of Teaching Staff in the New Era" and other documents last year, which emphasizd the new requirement of education modernization on teachers, the laws regarding teachers’ professional development, and the innovation of teacher education.

Relying on the teaching platform of the Elite Courses of "Chemistry Pedagogy" in Guangdong Province, the research agenda is based on the construction of middle school chemistry textbooks and informationalized teaching resources, focusing on the chemistry classroom and teacher professional development from the perspective of the chemistry core literacy, aiming to solve big problems from the secondary school chemistry teaching practice. After nearly 20 years of hard work, our research agenda has gradually formed its own characteristics and advantages in China. While producing excellent products, it also makes great contribution to cultivation of outstanding secondary school chemistry teachers, academic exchanges and product converting.

The main research fields involved in this subject are as follows:

1. Construction and application of chemistry teaching resources

The construction and application of chemistry teaching resources are mainly devoted to the following three aspects:

(1) Handheld technology digital experimental lab, website construction (http://www.520hx.com.cn/), elite cases, teaching models, MOOC resources (https://www.icourse163.org/course/scnu-1207045812) and the development of supporting teaching materials (http://www.520hx.com.cn/yx);

(2) The development of teaching materials and teaching aids for chemistry education games;

(3) The compilation of middle school chemistry textbooks. This research field has declared 3 nation-level projects, 6 province-level projects, 1 univeristy-level project, and obtained 1 national software copyright registration right. We have published 72 papers in domestic and foreign journals, including 22 SSCI and/or CSSCI papers, 40 core journal papers, and 10 other journal papers; developed 5 innovative teaching aids, and 3 authorized patents; won eight achievement awards at the national, provincial, and/or university levels. Products have been applied to 22 provinces, more than 200 practicum bases. Professor Qian Yangyi served as the associate editor of the ninth grade textbook of Chemistry, and the textbook has been used in more than 10 provinces(more than 200 cities) in the past 10 years.

2. Psychological research on conceptual structure of chemistry

This research direction focuses mainly on the cognitive psychological mechanism of how handheld technology supports chemistry concept learning and relevant teaching models, which yielded three published books. We have developed more than 50 hand-held digital experiments to support the study of chemistry concepts, some of which have been used in the demonstration project of "National Training Program". Also, we have published more than 60 related journal papers (including 17 SSCI and/or CSSCI articles), constructed 5 handheld technology websites supporting chemistry concepts learning, and undertaken 4 provincal research projects. This direction is open to doctoral degree applicants from the country.

3. Chemistry teacher education& subject understanding

The direction of “chemistry teacher education” aims to practise the national plan of “improving the comprehensive quality and abilityl of normal school students”. Based on the Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) framework, it investigates how to cultivate high-quality pre-service chemistry teachers (including normal students and Master of Education students) and in-service chemistry teachers (including new teachers and elite teachers) . Specifically, professor Qian Yangyi's "experts into classroom" project and the "national teacher training program" and "provincial teacher training program" projects have a great contribution to the professional development of in-service chemistry teachers. The research field of “subject understanding” focuses on how to explore and develop effectively secondary school chemistry teachers’s subject matter knowledge from the perspectives of conceptual framing and learning progressions. The related research was supported by 12 provincial and/or university-level projects. Relevant research findings have been published in Science Education, Curriculum Teaching Material and Method, Chinese Journal of Chemical Education, Education in Chemistry and other academic journals, including 14 SSCI papers and more than 70 CSSCI and/or core journal papers.

4.chemistry classroom teaching & design

The research direction of chemistry curriculum and teaching is characteristic of chemistry inquiry-based argumentation, serving the cultivation of normal students’ chemistry core literacies including “scientific inquiry and innovation consciousness” and “evidence-based reasoning and modeling cognition”. We have published a body of research findings in Chinese core journals such as "E-education Research", "Chinese Journal of Chemical Education", and " Education In Chemistry", which were supported by provincial and university-level teaching reform projects. The direction of chemistry instructioal design combines different types of teaching domains (such as concept, principles, properties of elements, etc.); concentrates on how to effectively integrate chemistry curriculum, teaching theories, chemistry experiments, and information technology; and designs appropriate teaching programs to achieve the teaching goal of chemistry core literacy. The related research has been supported by the teaching reform project at both provincial and university levels. As a result, normal university students has won one innovation award and one first prize, three second prizes, two third prizes in the Toshiba Cup competition, as well as many other national, provincial and university-level awards.