Abstract This paper reviewed the research on multiple external representations of chemical concepts in recent 15 years, clarified the characteristics of multiple external representations and the definition of chemical concepts, and summarized the characteristics of students' multiple external representations of chemical concepts. These characteristics included that the multiple external representations were based on computer, especially computer model focused on the representation of molecule or microscopic representation. Then authors concluded the pedagogical implications of multiple external representations of chemical concepts, including that teachers should pay attention to the teaching of multiple representations of chemical concepts, the actual situation of students should be considered while varieties of multiple external representations were showed and curriculum designers could introduce some basic micro-representation in early stage to cooperate to explore the macroscopic properties of matter.
