Undergraduate Chemistry Courses Research Articles

Enhancing academic performance and student success through learning analytics-based personalised feedback emails in first-year chemistry

Recent developments in digital technologies, including learning analytics are changing educational practices due to the wealth of information available and its utility to inform academic interventions for students. This study investigates the impact of personalised feedback emails on students’ academic performance and student success in large first-year undergraduate chemistry courses. Learning analytics was used to inform and generate feedback emails to students at various timepoints during the semester. The feedback emails to students included an evaluation of their current performance, and advice of support systems and resources to support their learning. We analysed the marks of 6334 students at three timepoints during the semester in addition to their final course grade, and compared academic performance across three years of course offerings (2019–2021). We compared students that did not receive feedback (2019 control groups, n = 2391) with students that did receive feedback (2020–2021 experimental groups, n = 3943). Our findings suggest that students receiving personalised emails during the semester were more likely to pass their first-year chemistry course. Furthermore, our data showed that sending personalised feedback emails fostered higher student success among a greater number of students within the cohort, as well as students' appraisal of the personalised feedback.

Characterizing and identifying influences on undergraduates’ attitudes towards organic chemistry

Despite the important role organic chemistry plays in a wide range of industries, the undergraduate organic chemistry course sequence is considered to be difficult for and feared by students. Although work has been done to identify and address student difficulties within the cognitive and psychomotor domains, little work has focused on investigating student affect towards organic chemistry. Identifying student emotions towards the course and how these emotions impact students’ learning experiences is a key component in addressing student success in organic chemistry. In general chemistry studies, attitudes have been linked to persistence and performance in the class, but little work has been done to determine what role attitude plays in organic chemistry students’ experiences. In this qualitative study, student attitudes towards organic chemistry and the influences that shape those attitudes were explored. Students displayed a wide range of attitudes towards organic chemistry, including positive, negative, neutral, and blended attitudes. Five major influences were shown to have shaped these attitudes including the reputation of the course, students’ educators, experiences with organic chemistry, experiences with introductory chemistry, and individual experiences. Findings also indicated that many student attitudes towards organic chemistry are in place before they have begun the course, but that students’ attitudes may change after interacting with the course material. Limitations of this investigation, as well as implications for research and practitioners, are discussed.

Empowering Peer Leaders: Designing Dynamic PLTL Training in the United Kingdom

In the academic year 2021-2022, Queen Mary University of London (UK) launched its successful pilot of Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) within undergraduate chemistry and economics courses. This year (2022-2023), the program expanded, with PLTL also introducing courses within biological sciences and business studies. Over 900 students are now enrolled in our PLTL program facilitated by approximately 80 Peer Leaders. Building on this success and inspired by colleagues from the University of Rochester on Peer Leader training materials, we sought to develop our own bespoke training materials for QMUL Peer Leaders. Working with our Peer Leaders, content was co-created to develop a feedback-orientated program for future cohorts. The current cohort of Peer Leaders was surveyed to identify gaps in the previous training program and suggest ideas to be prioritized. The enhanced training program emerged as an immersive online ‘course page’ comprising of written documents, videos, and interactive activities. This material will be consolidated and reinforced through an in-person training day to be held in late September during “Welcome Week” culminating in a final online assessment. This paper explores the intricacies of the decision-making process involved in crafting the training materials and serves as a template for other UK Universities adopting PLTL.

Using social influence models to characterize student interest in a general chemistry peer-led team learning setting

Motivation helps drive students to success in general chemistry, and active learning environments with social interactions has consistently shown to improve motivation. However, analyzing student outcomes in an interactive environment is best done by considering students not as isolated units but as working together and influencing each other. Therefore, we used social network analysis with self-determination theory as a framework for understanding motivation and social comparison theory as a framework for understanding how students influence each other. When analyzing an undergraduate general chemistry course that has incorporated peer-led team learning using data from the Learning Climate Questionnaire and Intrinsic Motivation Inventory, a series of progressively sophisticated statistical models with data gathered from 270 students shows that perceived competence and relatedness predict student interest in the activities with their peer-led sessions. However, we also found evidence that students tend to become polarized in their interest toward peer-led team learning activities, which is one possible outcome of social comparisons with their peers. In addition to these findings, this project demonstrates how social network analysis can expand how chemistry education researchers consider relational data and the effects of non-independent data on statistical analysis.

Ten Minutes a Semester: Evaluation of a Short Wellness Intervention for Undergraduate Chemistry and Biology Courses

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted many challenges undergraduate students face including their ability to manage stress. Poor stress management can contribute to poor academic performance and health outcomes; better wellness habits and stress reduction go hand-in-hand, as improved wellness habits reduce overall stress and expand positive stress management strategies. This article describes the design of a short wellness intervention for STEM classes and its evaluation after implementation in five chemistry and biology courses that span the four years of a biochemistry degree. This intervention, composed of a short, in-class presentation and an associated supplemental resource handout, presents students with information on five wellness areas: sleep, nutrition, water intake, exercise, and meditation and mindfulness. Students were surveyed at three points (once preintervention and twice postintervention) in one semester and asked to report their perceived stress, current wellness habits, and overall perception of the intervention. Notably, the majority of students (89%) thought the intervention should be included in other courses. The importance of completing the intervention in class was underscored by the small number of students (19%) who reported accessing the additional resources provided outside of class. Student wellness habits did not dramatically shift postintervention, but this study garnered insights into the barriers students face when attempting to change their wellness behavior. Overwhelmingly students reported that academic workload was the dominant factor hindering positive wellness change. The intervention materials, including a suggested script, are shared, and data-supported recommendations for implementation in other courses and institutions are provided.

Selection and analysis of textbooks for Chemistry Teaching: conceptions of future teachers in focus

The present article intended to analyze, from a descriptive case study (YIN, 2005) of the conceptions of students of the Undergraduate Chemistry course of a Federal Public Institution in southeastern Brazil, the process involving the selection and analysis of chemistry textbooks. Produced by a qualitative approach and through an online form, the students' answers were submitted to the methodology of Content Analysis (BARDIN, 2011). The result of the research is that the students recognize the importance of textbook analysis during the experience of the initial training curriculum, envisioning the implementation of this knowledge in their future teaching work. As part of the discussion, the notion of time is pointed out, a dimension disputed by neoliberal practices, emerging as an important element that crosses the selection and analysis of textbooks, both in the initial and continued formation of teachers, and in the teaching practice of school education.

Characterizing Mindset-Related Challenges in Undergraduate Chemistry Courses

Characterizing Mindset-Related Challenges in Undergraduate Chemistry Courses

Helen Tran

For the longest time, Helen Tran didn’t feel a strong pull toward chemistry. Art was her passion. She even remembers how in middle school, she was a teaching assistant for a chemistry class, but she always tried to finish her grading early so she could go work in the art studio next door. The turning point was her first undergraduate organic chemistry course. The material spoke to Tran’s instinct for visualization. Then a polymer chemistry class appealed to her love for building things. Those courses solidified her path in chemistry. Now she calls herself a molecular architect: she designs and makes stretchable, biodegradable electronic materials with her group at the University of Toronto. “She really wants to work at this interface of disciplines between chemistry, polymer science, biology, and materials,” says polymer chemist Ron Zuckermann of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where Tran worked before starting her PhD. Tran’s group in

Kenneth Wade. 13 October 1932—16 March 2014

Much of Ken Wade's scientific career was devoted to developing and exploiting the chemistries of boron, aluminium, gallium and indium (the Group 13 elements). He made significant contributions to both experimental and theoretical aspects of the subject and was a highly regarded teacher and attentive research supervisor. Ken was a modest and self-critical man who had a rare ability to recognize patterns in large chemical and molecular structure data sets and express the resulting generalizations in the form of simple rules that experimental chemists could appreciate and use to predict new compounds. Ken was fascinated by the structures of cluster compounds that are based on regular polyhedral shapes. Cluster molecules generally contain groups of metal atoms linked by metal–metal bonds and located on one or more spherical shells. Since the 1960s they have attracted the attention of both academic and industrial chemists. Understanding and predicting their three-dimensional shapes raised a significant intellectual challenge for chemists. The clusters also attracted attention because they occupy an intermediate position between co-ordination compounds based on a single metal atom and the parent metal, which has an infinite number of linked metal atoms. This provided chemists with a unique opportunity to explore the evolution of their electronic and chemical properties as the cluster size increases. Ken was the first to recognize the electronic relationships connecting closo- , nido- , arachno- and hypho - clusters. These clusters are inter-related by the successive removal of vertices from a regular closo- deltahedron, i.e. a polyhedron with all the faces triangular. His ability to connect the structures of these molecules to the number of valence electrons involved in skeletal bonding represented a significant contribution to chemical bonding theories. Ken communicated his conclusions in very clearly written papers and books. This made the complexities of cluster chemistry amenable to many and especially those who did not have a strong background in quantum chemistry. The skeletal electron counting rules, or Wade's Rules, which Ken pioneered, are now very much part of the fabric of modern cluster chemistry and form an important component of modern undergraduate inorganic chemistry courses. Wade's Rules may be applied to main group and transition metal carbonyl clusters as well as clusters containing both main group and transition metal fragments. Besides providing an accessible entry into cluster chemistry for students, the rules have been used creatively by many leading synthetic chemists to discover new classes of compounds.

Helium nanodroplet isolation spectroscopy in an undergraduate teaching laboratory

A home-built helium nanodroplet isolation spectrometer has been utilized by undergraduate students in course-based experiments to investigate the rovibrational dynamics of small molecules. Helium nanodroplets are a versatile medium that simplifies the spectroscopy of embedded molecules owing to their low temperature (0.4 K) and weakly interacting nature. In the infrared spectral region, this often results in a small number of rotationally resolved lines that can be observed and analyzed within several lab periods. We demonstrate the advantages of using this well-established technique in an upper-level undergraduate chemistry course for which the laser spectroscopy of helium solvated 13C-labelled formic acid was investigated for the first time.

A construct modelling approach to characterize chemistry students’ understanding of the nature of light

ABSTRACT Across science disciplines, light is a common tool for measuring, characterizing, and catalysing molecules and molecular processes. Despite the ubiquity of light-based tools, little research has been done to investigate how students understand light and light–matter interactions (LMI). This topic is typically first introduced in first-year undergraduate chemistry courses where students initially encounter the quantum nature of light and matter. How students make sense of this content and transition from classical concepts to quantum concepts is relatively unknown. To gain further insight on how students develop quantum-level conceptions about light, we use a construct modelling approach. This approach is best suited to capture progressions in student understanding. In this study, we begin to model students’ understanding of LMI by first developing a model for the nature of light. Two sets of qualitative interviews were conducted about the particulate nature of light and the wave nature of light. Analysis of interviews resulted in four construct maps, which can provide information to instructors and researchers about the variation in student understanding of the nature of light. Findings from this study have implications for how quantum chemistry is introduced at the postsecondary level.

Service-Learning in Undergraduate General Chemistry: A Review

Background: Service-learning is gaining recognition as a valuable pedagogy for students to gain both academic and psychosocial benefits. This high-impact practice allows students to achieve course learning objectives while contributing to their community's needs. A review from 2007 revealed a lack of research focused on the topic in the prior decade, despite the interest that was shown by the American Chemical Society in 2000. Purpose: This review of recent case studies on the topic provides future researchers and practitioners with an understanding of the current state of service-learning in undergraduate chemistry courses. Methodology/Approach: To create a representative sample of recent literature for a non-exhaustive scoping review, only peer-reviewed articles addressing service-learning in undergraduate chemistry, published in reliable journals in the last two decades were included. These studies were analyzed in terms of course design, research design, and research quality. Findings/Conclusions: While the scoping review identified papers with notable contributions to establishing service-learning in undergraduate general chemistry, the review also identified several key gaps in the literature, including small sample size, reliance on subjective and indirect measures, and qualitative measures that exclude correlation analysis. Implications: Recommendations for future work for both practitioners and researchers are provided.

Investigating patterns of student engagement during collaborative activities in undergraduate chemistry courses

Several studies have highlighted the positive effects that active learning may have on student engagement and performance. However, the influence of active learning strategies is mediated by several factors, including the nature of the learning environment and the cognitive level of in-class tasks. These factors can affect different dimensions of student engagement such as the nature of social processing in student groups, how knowledge is used and elaborated upon by students during in-class tasks, and the amount of student participation in group activities. In this study involving four universities in the US, we explored the association between these different dimensions of student engagement and the cognitive level of assigned tasks in five distinct general chemistry learning environments where students were engaged in group activities in diverse ways. Our analysis revealed a significant association between task level and student engagement. Retrieval tasks often led to a significantly higher number of instances of no interaction between students and individualistic work, and a lower number of knowledge construction and collaborative episodes with full student participation. Analysis tasks, on the other hand, were significantly linked to more instances of knowledge construction and collaboration with full group participation. Tasks at the comprehension level were distinctive in their association with more instances of knowledge application and multiple types of social processing. The results of our study suggest that other factors such as the nature of the curriculum, task timing, and class setting may also affect student engagement during group work.

SEMICARBAZONAS: SEQUÊNCIA DIDÁTICA INTERDISCIPLINAR EM AULAS EXPERIMENTAIS DE QUÍMICA ORGÂNICA E QUÍMICA MEDICINAL

SEMICARBAZONES: INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH IN EXPERIMENTAL CLASSES OF ORGANIC CHEMISTRY AND MEDICINAL CHEMISTRY. Considering the chemical and pharmacological properties of semicarbazones, an interdisciplinary didactic sequence was developed to be applied in experimental classes of undergraduate courses in Pharmacy, Chemistry and related areas. This didactic sequence was planned in three steps, starting from the planning of the target molecule, a semicarbazone derived from helional, to its synthesis, physicochemical characterization (CCD, melting point, FTIR and UV-Vis) and in silico tests of its pharmacokinetic properties using the free software ADMETlab 2.0. The proposed target molecule has as molecular scaffold the 1,3-benzodiaxole nucleus and the semicarbazone function, aiming to obtain a molecule with promising anticonvulsant action and that can be obtained by a low cost and easy to execute methodology, which makes it attractive for use in experimental classes. Thus, the application of this didactic sequence aims to provide undergraduate students the opportunity to experience the process of drug development, applying techniques for planning, synthesis, characterization, and pharmacokinetic evaluation in silico. Besides reinforcing the interdisciplinary teaching of Medicinal Chemistry, applying in an integrated way the theoretical and practical knowledge of the disciplines of Organic Chemistry, Physical Chemistry, Pharmacology and Computational Chemistry.

Blending muddiest point activities with the common formative assessments bolsters the performance of marginalized student populations in general chemistry

Formative assessments (FAs), such as muddiest point activities can capture students’ areas of confusion or struggle on given content that may otherwise be overlooked with the common FAs, such as quizzes, homework, and clickers. The few reported studies indicate mixed results on the effects of implementing the muddiest point in undergraduate STEM or chemistry courses. Additionally, the commonly reported implementation model involves the short cycle—asking the areas of confusion at the end of the lesson on instructor pre-chosen topics. Using a quasi-experimental study design, we investigated the effects of blending the muddiest point activities at each Chapter (medium cycle) with the usual common FAs on performance in the General Chemistry 1 course. In one lecture section, students were exposed to the muddiest point and the common FAs, whereas in another lecture students were exposed to the common FAs alone. Results showed students in the treatment group performed significantly (p< 0.05) better on all three midterm exams than their counterparts who were exposed to the usual common FAs only. The mean difference in the final exam was not statistically significant (p> 0.05), even though the treatment group showed a slightly higher mean score than the comparison group. MANCOVA results showed a statistically significant main effect of the FA type and statistically significant interactions between the FA type and demographic variables, particularly gender and first-generation status, and race/ethnicity and first-generation status on performance, after controlling for ACT Math scores. Between-subject tests revealed significantly higher mean scores on some midterm exams for minority, minority-first-generation, and female-first-generation students in the treatment group compared to their peers in the comparison group. The findings imply that muddiest point activities can promote equitable access to learning for all students and bolster performance, particularly for marginalized students.

Exploring curriculum adoption of green and sustainable chemistry in undergraduate organic chemistry courses: results from a national survey in the United States

This study investigated the integration of sustainable chemistry as well as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and planetary boundaries into the organic chemistry curriculum through a national survey of organic chemistry instructors within the United States.

Interactive Tools for First-Semester Undergraduate Chemistry Course in Uruguay: Student Choices and Impact on Student Performance and Dropout

Interactive Tools for First-Semester Undergraduate Chemistry Course in Uruguay: Student Choices and Impact on Student Performance and Dropout

Molecular Model and Its Simplification in Teaching Stereoisomerism at Undergraduate Level

The role of molecular models in teaching chemistry is well-known. It is widely used in explaining the shape of molecules. Several authors have reported the difficulty in teaching stereochemistry/chirality. Some researchers have pleaded that the students face difficulty in solving stereochemistry problems because of poor visualization of three-dimensional structure of molecules. The present paper describes herewith the use of simple and inexpensive ball-stick molecular models in teaching stereoisomerism (conformation, configuration, and chirality in allenes) of organic molecules at undergraduate introductory organic chemistry course. It specially describes the use of simplified molecular models in determining the configuration (R or S) of the molecule.

Teaching Sustainability and Environmental Justice in Undergraduate Chemistry Courses

This article examines the intersection of environmental justice and undergraduate chemistry education through a review of existing publications that highlight successful strategies for chemistry ed...

Organic Chemistry Students’ Written Descriptions and Explanations of Resonance and Its Influence on Reactivity

Resonance is a fundamental concept that is necessary for students’ successful learning in organic chemistry. However, there is a need to know more about both (1) what students find important when describing resonance and (2) students’ conceptual understanding. This research seeks to address this discrepancy by examining second-semester organic chemistry students’ responses to a writing-to-learn (WTL) assignment focused on resonance. This work is guided by the cognitive process theory of writing and studies within undergraduate STEM and chemistry courses that indicate the usefulness of WTL assignments for examining how students convey their understanding of fundamental concepts. We analyzed students’ responses to a WTL assignment designed to elicit students’ explanations of resonance and its influence on reactivity to a general, nonscientific audience. The goal of our analysis was to identify the features students found important when explaining resonance and to gain insight regarding their conceptual understanding. The analysis was guided by an analytical framework outlining the learning objectives for resonance at the introductory organic chemistry level. We identified various elements in students’ writing, including (1) the analogies or examples students used to explain resonance, (2) the basic definitions of the concept students included, and (3) the various ways students described the influence of resonance on reactivity. Our findings indicate that students generally described resonance with an operational rather than conceptual definition, focusing on the process of drawing resonance structures rather than providing conceptual explanations. Furthermore, we identified that students tended to associate resonance with stability, with many students often extending this association to make overgeneralized statements about the influence of resonance on reactivity.