We developed and explored four increasing levels of embodied interaction – animation, mouse, joy-stick and haptic - to support chemistry students in grasping the attraction-repulsion forces and energy changes involved in chemical bonding. These topics are difficult to grasp as there are no analogues from everyday life for both attraction and repulsion happening simultaneously. Our theoretical framework is based on embodied learning theory by relating conceptual learning to bodily experiences. The study uses quantitative and qualitative methods with 48 high-school students in a pretest-intervention-posttest design. Our findings show that there is an increase in students' conceptual understanding in all four levels of embodiment, with significant higher learning gain in the haptic condition. Additional differences in the higher embodied levels are higher resolution of the information accessed and described, more scientific descriptions of bonding, and multiple perspectives of the phenomenon.
