Analysis of the atom and its structure in chemistry textbooks

The aim of this paper is to analyse presentation of an atom as a particle in selected chemistry textbooks as a part of didactic reconstruction of the atom concept. We analysed the textbooks by applying several criteria - science education models, approximation of an atom at sub-microscopic and/or subatomic level, and the function and number of pictures. We also took into consideration the difficulty of texts. Based on the diversity of textbooks in terms of length, we quantified the text into the number of words and sentences in function-based categories. We could conclude that, in the selected textbooks, the atom is described and visualised, however, there is no emphasis placed on understanding the atom, which can lead to pupils' misconceptions.