Improving Interest and Performance in Organic Chemistry Pedagogy by Incooperating Animations

Abstract

Chemistry curricula incorporate many abstract concepts that are important but difficult for students to understand. Educational researchers have recently begun to concentrate on the development of a wide variety of visualization tools and novel pedagogies to aid students in science learning at all levels. This study used the Roger Frost organic animation package to ascertain the impact of interactive computer visualization (ICV) in the teaching of organic chemistry at the Nigeria Certificate in Education and Degree levels. It adopted a quasi-experimental research design and used Structured Personal Data Questionnaire (SPDQ) and Semester Result (SR) for data collection. A mobile virtual classroom was created and used throughout the study. The students identified mechanism of reactions, cycloaddition reactions, synthesis of proteins and certain aspects of IUPAC nomenclature as challenging areas in their study of organic chemistry. After the three months teaching period using the organic simulation program, results from evaluating the students showed that interest and confidence in the selection and answering of questions from topics taught using ICV improved, the mean performances of the students almost doubled when ICV was introduced in the teaching program, a mean value of 48.20 out of 60 was obtained which indicated that the animated teaching was effective to a high extent and a general enhancement of the interest of students in the study of organic chemistry. The researchers therefore recommended that teaching of organic chemistry should be enriched with relevant illustrations, organic chemistry text books should be sold with CDs having computer simulations of organic reaction mechanisms for better appreciation. Virtual chemistry room for computer assisted instructions should be included in the design of chemistry laboratory to enhance instructional delivery using the 21st century pedagogy. Computational chemistry should be included in the university chemistry curriculum. Also basic computer knowledge by academic staff should be emphasized to enable them cope with the proposed digitalization of the course.