Abstract
BackgroundCooperative and inquiry-based pedagogies provide a context for classroom discourse in which students develop joint understanding of subject matter knowledge. Using the symbolic interactionist perspective that meaning is constructed as individuals interact with one another, we examined how student groups enrolled in an undergraduate general chemistry course developed sociochemical norms that influenced individual student understanding of chemical concepts. Sociochemical norms refer to the normative aspects of classroom microculture that regulate discourse on what counts as a table chemical justification and explanation. We describe how these sociochemical normative ideas were developed based on observational research and recordings of the student groups as they engaged in classroom discourse.ResultsOur analysis showed that students routinely developed chemistry-driven criteria within and across groups to explain the nature of dissolving ionic solids in water. Moreover, resultant sociochemical norms led to shifts in student understanding and the ways in which students reasoned about the causes of chemical phenomena under study.ConclusionsOur results indicate that group dialog influenced individual student conceptions of ionic compounds in solution and highlight the need to engage students in instructional activities that not only engage them in the multiple ways of representing chemical knowledge but also making public their views and participating in classroom discourse.
Highlights
For more than two decades, there has been a gradual paradigm shift towards cooperative and inquiry-based pedagogies in college science teaching (Paulson 1999; Bowen 2000; Spencer 2006; Eilks and Byers 2009; Warfa 2015). The success of these pedagogies in the teaching of science in part stem from their ability to foster student discussion and create collaborative learning dynamics in a social context wherein problem-solving and conceptual understanding is stressed (Johnson et al 1991)
Sociochemical norms Becker et al (2013) coined the term sociochemical norms to describe the disciplinary criteria that regulate classroom discourse and normative aspects in the study of chemistry. This is an extension of the social construct of sociomathematical norms (Yackel and Cobb 1996) proposed as a way to interpret how mathematics classroom dynamics affect student development of mathematical beliefs and values
The following section describes the development of these sociochemical normative ideas and how they were used within and across groups to describe the dissolution processes of chemical compounds
Summary
For more than two decades, there has been a gradual paradigm shift towards cooperative and inquiry-based pedagogies in college science teaching (Paulson 1999; Bowen 2000; Spencer 2006; Eilks and Byers 2009; Warfa 2015). Particulate-level descriptions of solids, liquids, and gases became “central to the collective reasoning about thermodynamic concepts and processes” (Cole et al 2012, p.206) This particulate-level reasoning forms discipline-specific justification for what counts as chemically justifiable and acceptable and a normative aspect of classroom discourse specific to the study of chemistry. In their subsequent paper, Becker et al (2013) used the term sociochemical norms to describe these disciplinary-specific normative ways of reasoning. We use this construct to examine how students negotiate what counts as an acceptable chemical explanation, reasoning, and justification for the physical and chemical properties of dissolved ionic solids
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