Chemistry Syllabus Research Articles

Getting Real: A General Chemistry Laboratory Program Focusing on "Real World" Substances

In order to confront the abstractness of the freshman chemistry syllabus and the consequent failure of students to relate what they learn to their everyday lives, we have designed a new freshman laboratory program. It is intended as an interface between the substances that surround the students in their ordinary lives and the abstract principles presented in chemistry classrooms. A laboratory should provide the organized experiences and observations that underlie the intellectual constructs of chemistry, and tying these experiences and observations to the real world can help to provide motivation for study of the principles. The freshman laboratory program constitutes the foundation for subsequent laboratory courses. However, the good habits we strive to develop there (careful observation, thorough record keeping, proper use of equipment, objective data analysis) are essential to all scientific work, and are intended to provide lasting educational value for all students, especially those who do not take later laboratory work.

Educational aspects of sonochemistry: The role of sonochemistry at high school level

The applications of sonochemistry have attracted a great deal of attention. However, conventional chemistry textbooks used in universities and high schools cover traditional chemistry plus thermo,- photo- and electrochemistry. The effect of sound on chemical systems has completely been ignored. Although the mechanisms of many sonochemical reactions remain unresolved, the rapid expansion of knowledge in sonochemistry has already justified its inclusion in present chemistry curricula. Moreover, the interesting and unusual phenomena encountered under sonication conditions can be used for motivation purposes. Furthermore, exploring and equipping students with a new tool for investigating chemistry is also important based on educational principles. This paper examines some chemical systems (in a high school chemistry syllabus) which are affected by sound energy. It is hoped that these sonochemical applications will facilitate the learning of chemistry in terms of cognitive, psychomotor and affective domains.

Pupils’ representations of models of water

Different representations of models of water based on the particulate nature of matter are included in Portuguese chemistry syllabuses at various levels. The pencil‐and‐paper question ‘Represent water in its three states using a model’ was given to 227 pupils (13‐18 years old) from 8th to 12th grades. The findings show that: the dominant model used was of the space‐filling type; the movement of particles was indicated by a minority of pupils; an increase in the size of the model used and of interatomic bonds was shown in the representations of a liquid and a gas as compared with those of a solid; bond angles were usually incorrectly represented; the molecular spacings in a liquid and a gas, in comparison with those in a solid, were, respectively, over‐ and under‐estimated. Some educational implications of these findings are discussed.

The role of cognitive factors in chemistry achievement

AbstractEvidence from the research literature suggests that a variety of cognitive factors is responsible for chemistry achievement. This investigation examined the role of four cognitive factors, namely, formal reasoning ability, prior knowledge, field dependence/ independence, and memory capacity on achievement in chemistry as measured by tests of laboratory application, chemical calculations and content knowledge. The sample comprised grade 11 students from eleven high schools who were following the same chemistry syllabus. The results indicated that prior knowledge and formal reasoning ability were each statistically significantly related to variation in chemistry achievement. Field dependence/independence and memory capacity played no significant role in chemistry achievement.

Chemical education in the Year 2000

This writer puts forward an appeal for a reconsideration of the system of teaching chemistry. Chemistry syllabuses of the Twenty-first century should reflect Twentieth century developments.

A teaching-laboratory experiment

This paper begins with a personal view of the consequences of introducing a number of CAL packages, associated with experiment-planning, into the physical chemistry teaching laboratory. That raises questions which lead to a study of some modes of presentation of textbook material which appear unsatisfactory. The first part of the paper concludes with a survey of previous criticisms of the physical chemistry syllabus, and of the largely ineffectual attempts at revision and reconstruction which ensued therefrom. The second part of the paper aims to demonstrate that a straight-forward approach combining elements of operational research with the experience of the CALCHEM Project of the National Development Programme in Computer Assisted Learning has real potential for syllabus reconstruction in the first-year teaching laboratory. A critique of the traditional version of one particular exercise, in terms of both intellectual content and student performance, points to the need to address a list of educational objectives. both global and specific. The case study which follows illustrates how such objectives were deduced from the inadequacies of student understanding of the phenomena in question, and how combining these exercise-specific objectives with the global objectives defines a general scheme, and thence a detailed procedure, for the experiment. Student response to two different ways of presenting this scheme and procedure is described. The oral tutorial mode is more effective than that using a comprehensive typescript. It is observed that student response appears to be adversely affected by the exercise being encountered in the context of traditional recipe-following assignments. It is nevertheless concluded that this reconstruction of a traditional experiment does enhance learning opportunities. Finally the occasional want of rigour in physical chemistry textbooks is juxtaposed to the traditional teaching laboratory approach, described as ritualistic rather than scientific, raising the question whether the connexion between the two might be the failure to formulate either global or exercise-specific learning objectives. It is claimed to have been demonstrated that the methodology here described does provide a feasible strategy for reconstructing the laboratory syllabus so as to render attainable at least the list of global learning objectives enumerated in the paper.

Thoughts After Studying The high School Chemistry Syllabus for the Full-Time Ten-Year School System (Trial Draft)

The High School Chemistry Syllabus for the Full-time Ten-year School System (Trial Draft) (abbreviated below as the New Syllabus) has been worked out under an excellent situation in which the gang of four has been overthrown and some preliminary results have been achieved in the policy of grasping the key link of class struggle and bringing about great order across the land as proposed by the Party Central Committee headed by Chairman Hua. This Syllabus has been compiled under the guidance of the Ministry of Education. It exposes and criticizes in depth the serious interference and damage to the revolution in education caused by Liu Shaoqi, Lin Biao, and especially the gang of four. It sums up the effective experience in chemistry teaching over the previous twenty-eight years and points out the direction for reforming chemistry teaching in future. Therefore, to study and understand its essence is very significant for unifying our understanding, doing a good job of teaching chemistry and improving our ...

Comparisons between Inductive and Deductive Programmed Learning

The Ruleg system was used in the preparation true even for the more able pupils and in the longer‐term of inductive and deductive programmes for the teaching retention of ideas. However, ability and attitude did in‐of a section of the O‐grade SCE chemistry syllabus. Using fluence the effectiveness of teaching by both types of multiple‐choice tests it was found that inductive pro‐ programme whereas sex and age (fourteen to sixteen year grammes were not so successful as deductive, and this was range) did not.

The Application of Theoretical Knowledge to the Study of Metals

The topic Metals in the school chemistry syllabus[for the tenth grade] is divided into three sections. In the first, pupils are given a general orientation on the structure and properties of metals; in the second, they examine these properties, the occurrence of metals in nature, and the uses of various metals and their compounds; and in the third, they take up the problems of metallurgy.

The Evening Conference on Chemists as Revolutionaries

The chemistry syllabus for the eight-year school states: In using historical material, one must familiarize students with the contribution leading chemists have made to the storehouse of scientific knowledge. This has great informational and educational significance. (1)

Evaluation of Chemistry Syllabuses in Scotland

(1974). Evaluation of Chemistry Syllabuses in Scotland. Studies in Science Education: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 21-49.

On the Draft of a New Chemistry Syllabus for the Secondary School

The syllabus committees established by the USSR Academy of Sciences and Academy of Pedagogical Sciences have drafted proposed syllabi for all the subjects taught in school. As indicated in the joint resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the USSR Council of Ministers, On Measures for Further Improvement of the General Secondary School (Pravda, November 19. 1966), the recommendations of the academies have been taken as a basis for converting our schools, in the years immediately ahead, to new syllabi. The work presently in progress includes modification of syllabi and continuation of experimental verification of these syllabi in the schools, while teams of writers have begun the development of new textbooks. The proposed chemistry syllabus is published in the current issue of the journal for the information of teachers and discussion in methods groups.

Teaching mathematics to chemists

There have been large changes in the content of chemistry courses during the post‐war period, particularly at an advanced level. It is believed that the relevance of the existing mathematics course to the changing chemistry syllabus and to what industry expects of the trained chemist is sometimes neglected. This has led (in Constantine College) to a reconsideration of the adequacy of syllabuses in mathematics for existing advanced chemistry courses and to a consideration of the type of course which would be attractive to the industrial chemist. The authors have been supported by a working party and the ideas suggested here result largely from its findings. The object of this paper is to put forward some views as a first approximation in the hope that this will stimulate discussion and criticism of the existing situation. In November of 1964 a two‐day course was held in Newcastle on the teaching of physical chemistry. The lecturers at this meeting were mainly from university departments plus one industrialist and one former university lecturer now at a government research institute. Letters were sent to seven of these lecturers, who were asked what mathematics they considered appropriate for a modern undergraduate chemistry course. Most of the replies indicated what mathematics was being taught to chemistry undergraduates in the department with which the writer was concerned. In addition some information was volunteered by one other university department. In the non‐industrial replies topics were mentioned with a frequency indicated by the number following each topic — calculus (6), matrices and determinants (6), group theory and symmetry (4), vectors (4), differential equations (4) and probability (3). The industrial reply was quite different and discussed the need for the chemist to have an understanding of more industrial mathematics.