In their study concerning the sturctures and properties of
molecular and ionic compounds, Butts and Smith (1987)
have found that students confused ionic and covalent
bonds and thought that sodium chloride was a molecule
in which sodium and chloride atoms were bonded
covalently. In another study on covalent bonds, Peterson
et al. (1989) found out student misconceptions about
bond polarity, molecular structure, inter-molecular bonds
and the octet rule. Raymond et al. (1989) also reported
similar misconcepitons about bond polarity, molecular
structure and polarity, intermolecular forces and the octet
rule.
In her study concenrning misconceptions in chemical
bonding, electronegativity and molecular structure, Nicoll
(2001) found that students could not define covalent
bonding correctly and confused ionic, covalent and
hydrogen bonds. Coll and Taylor (2001) presented
students with examples of metallic, ionic and covalent
materials and asked them to identify the types of bonds in
these materials. At the end of the study, they found
several students’ misconceptions that intermolecular
covalent bonds were weak bonds, polar covalent
compounds were charged, and hydrogen containing
compounds like HCl were ionic.