Undergraduate Chemistry Students Research Articles

Developing a skills-based practical chemistry programme: an integrated, spiral curriculum approach

Abstract Teaching practical laboratory skills is a key component of preparing undergraduate students for future careers in chemistry and elsewhere. In this paper, we present our new strategy to teach practical skills to undergraduate chemistry students. We report a Skills Inventory, a list of the suggested practical skills a graduate chemist should possess; this list was compiled by chemists across the UK. In our new practical course we begin by decoupling the practical skill from the theoretical background, compelling students to first master the basic processes needed to carry out a specific technique. In what we have termed a ‘spiral curriculum’ approach, skills are revisited on multiple occasions, with increasing complexity and greater emphasis on underlying theory. The new course makes links across traditional subdisciplines of chemistry to avoid compartmentalisation of ideas.

Connecting the Dots: Students’ Mental Organization and Storage of Biochemistry Visual Literacy Skills

Undergraduate molecular life science curricula rely on a variety of abstract visual representations to convey information. Intentional development of undergraduate students’ visual literacy skills has the potential to increase conceptual understanding while also decreasing cognitive load. There is little existing research that assesses how students interpret and store biochemical information and representations in their long‐term memory. Moreover, the number of validated instruments for measuring visual literacy is limited. Studies performed with undergraduate chemistry students measured students’ structural knowledge, or schema, of topics by asking them to rank the relatedness of words/phrases. Our study aims to develop a valid assessment tool that measures participants' schema of biochemistry visual literacy skills by asking them to rank the relatedness of biochemical representations instead of words/phrases. We created four surveys to evaluate vertical and horizontal translation visual literacy skills. With the use of Pathfinder, we analyzed the schema of undergraduate students with variable knowledge in biochemistry at four universities against an expert referentnetwork. Preliminary results also assess if pedagogical strategies and course instructional modalities impact student’s schema. The characterization of representational schema held by students and experts could aid the development of curricular materials for optimal learning and retention of information in the molecular life sciences.

Vegetables for building molecular models

An exciting classroom activity involving the construction of molecular models and building hybrid orbitals is presented in this paper. Basic molecular geometries were built by connecting different types of vegetables using bamboo skewers. Vegetable of different shapes were used to describe the hybridization of atomic orbitals. This exercise is suitable for high school and undergraduate chemistry students. The activity helps students to apply Valence Shell Electron Pair Repulsion (VSEPR) theory to envisage the basic shapes of molecules and to conceptualize the hybridization of the atomic orbitals

Attitude and Achievement of First-Year Chemistry Undergraduate Students at The University of the South Pacific

Student attitude toward chemistry may influence engagement and achievement in chemistry-related courses, however, equivocal results in studies conducted in Western countries to date indicate this relationship requires further investigation. In this study, we investigated the correlation between attitude toward chemistry and achievement amongst a cohort of first-year undergraduate students from The University of the South Pacific (USP). A cluster analysis was used to identify low- and high-achieving groups of students to further explore potential correlations. There was a positive correlation between the cognitive and affective components of attitude among low-achieving students, but not among high-achieving students. The cognitive component of attitude did not appear to be strongly correlated with achievement in students from either group, although the affective component was positively correlated with achievement. The single item most strongly correlated with student achievement was their response on the Worthless-Beneficial scale. One of the notable findings was the differences in the attitude-achievement relationship between low-achieving and high-achieving students, suggesting that combining these clusters of students into a single group for analysis may obscure underlying correlations. Chemistry educators should continue to target their teaching styles to cater to different learning styles and achievement levels of students, including cognitive and non-cognitive learning styles.

Introducing Theoretical Principles of Semi-, Relative, and Absolute Quantification via Conventional, Real-Time, and Digital PCR to Graduate and Senior Undergraduate Students of Chemistry

Introducing Theoretical Principles of Semi-, Relative, and Absolute Quantification via Conventional, Real-Time, and Digital PCR to Graduate and Senior Undergraduate Students of Chemistry

Development of the Chemistry Mindset Instrument (CheMI) for use with introductory undergraduate chemistry students

Chemistry education research has increasingly considered the role of affect when investigating chemistry learning environments over the past decade. Despite its popularity in educational spheres, mindset has been understudied from a chemistry-specific perspective. Mindset encompasses one's beliefs about the ability to change intelligence with effort and has been shown to be a domain-specific construct. For this reason, students’ mindset would be most relevant in chemistry if it were measured as a chemistry-specific construct. To date, no instrument has been developed for use in chemistry learning contexts. Here we present evidence supporting the development process and final product of a mindset instrument designed specifically for undergraduate chemistry students. The Chemistry Mindset Instrument (CheMI) was developed through an iterative design process requiring multiple implementations and revisions. We analyze the psychometric properties of CheMI data from a sample of introductory (general and organic) chemistry students enrolled in lecture courses. We achieved good data-model fit via confirmatory factor analysis and high reliability for the newly developed items, indicating that the instrument functions well with the target population. Significant correlations were observed for chemistry mindset with students’ self-efficacy, mastery goals, and course performance, providing external validity evidence for the construct measurement.

Investigating the role of multiple categorization tasks in a curriculum designed around mechanistic patterns and principles

The goal of the present work is to extend an online reaction categorization task as a research instrument to a formative assessment tool of students’ knowledge organization for organic chemistry reactions. Herein, we report our findings from administering the task with undergraduate students in Organic Chemistry II, at a large, research intensive Canadian university, including the relationship between instrument and exam scores. The online categorization task uses 25 reaction cards that participants were asked to sort first into categories of their choosing (i.e., an open sort) then into the mechanistic categories defined in a Patterns of Mechanisms curriculum (i.e., a closed sort). We observed a small, significant correlation between how learners chose to organize their knowledge (i.e., open sort) and their cued ability (i.e., match with expert sort) at the beginning of the Organic Chemistry II course (N = 65, r = 0.28, p = 0.026). We conducted a correlation analysis between students’ scores on the open and closed sort tasks and academic achievement. We found a strong relationship between the scores in the online categorization tasks and Organic Chemistry II exams, especially from the closed sort tasks (N = 43, r = 0.70, p = 0.000). To date, no other discipline specific card-sort tasks have shown such a strong correlation with final assessment grades. We also found an increasing relationship between students’ choice and ability over time as students developed their expertise in the domain. This work also added evidence to the validity and reliability of the organic card-sort instrument, through multiple measures. Educators and students could use the card sort task as a self-assessment measure and as part of classroom activities related to mechanistic analysis. Future work is needed to investigate how card sort tasks of this type are connected with expertise in other settings.

Teaching stereoisomers through gesture, action, and mental imagery

Many undergraduate chemistry students struggle to understand the concept of stereoisomers, molecules that have the same molecular formula and sequence of bonded atoms but are different in how their atoms are oriented in space. Our goal in this study is to improve stereoisomer instruction by getting participants actively involved in the lesson. Using a pretest–instruction–posttest design, we instructed participants to enact molecule rotation in three ways: (1) by imagining the molecules’ movements, (2) by physically moving models of the molecules, or (3) by gesturing the molecules’ movements. Because gender differences have been found in students’ performance in chemistry (Moss-Racusin et al., 2018), we also disaggregated our effects by gender and examined how men and women responded to each of our 3 types of instruction. Undergraduate students took a pretest on stereoisomers, were randomly assigned to one of the 3 types of instruction in stereoisomers, and then took a posttest. We found that, controlling for pretest performance, both women and men participants made robust improvements after instruction. We end with a discussion of how these findings might inform stereoisomer instruction.

PERFIL SOCIOECONÔMICO DE ESTUDANTES DE QUÍMICA: O CASO DOS CURSOS DA UNESP – ARARAQUARA

SOCIOECONOMIC PROFILE OF UNDERGRADUATE CHEMISTRY STUDENTS: THE CASE OF UNESP-ARARAQUARA COURSES. Considering the recent expansion and democratization of access to Higher Education in Brazil, this article aims to characterize and compare the socioeconomic profiles of students who are entering the Bachelor (BAC), teacher education degree (LIC) and Chemical Engineering (ENG) at UNESP - Araraquara. A quantitative, longitudinal study was performed according to sociological interpretation of Pierre Bourdieu. The data stands for a socioeconomic questionnaire and the performance on the entrance exam of 1544 students between 2003 and 2018. A Socioeconomic Index was built through a Factorial Analysis and a Multiple Correspondence Analysis was performed to compare he profile of students of three courses. The results show that the students’ profiles are different, despite becoming similar in recent years, and the demand for these courses has been decreasing since 2016. There are three factors that explain these changes: i) young people’s lack of interest in scientific careers; ii) low attractiveness of the teaching career; iii) the creation of a new course modality in the institution (the ENG). Studies like this can contribute to identify, evaluate, and implement actions to democratize the access and permanence of students in Higher Education.

Current State of Attitude toward Extracurricular Reading among Undergraduate Chemistry Students Based on a Survey of Six Universities in Hunan Province

Current State of Attitude toward Extracurricular Reading among Undergraduate Chemistry Students Based on a Survey of Six Universities in Hunan Province

Concepções de licenciandos do curso de química sobre os princípios do movimento CTSA: uma reflexão nos currículos de formação docente

It is extremely important that basic education teachers are trained to act in a STSEperspective, as they will be able to provide students with citizenformation, allowing them to take a critical and reflective stance on issues that they may encounter in its social context.Given this, the present study aimed to investigate the conceptions of undergraduates about the principles of the STSEmovement in Chemistry Teaching. The research data collection was carried out through the documental analysis of the PPCs of the courses, as well as through the application of questionnaires to Chemistry undergraduate students from two Higher EducationInstitutions.In the pedagogical projects of the courses, the curricular components are covered with aspects that contribute to teacher education in this perspective, however, students still have difficulties regarding the understanding and the usage of the approach.

Crime Scene Investigation: Simulated Post-mortem LC–MS/MS Analysis of Cocaine and Cocaine Metabolites in Synthetic Human Serum

This laboratory experiment introduces upper-division undergraduate analytical chemistry students to liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) in a forensic application: the analysis of cocaine and metabolites of cocaine in simulated serum ostensibly from drug overdose victims. For this investigation, students developed the analytical methods. First, the students determined the multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) transitions and optimized collision energy. The MS methods developed were then added to an LC method for LC–MS/MS quantitation with a 2.5 min run time. Students successfully quantified the drugs and metabolites, and they were able to identify which samples indicated cocaine use and overdose.

Connecting explanations to representations: benefits of highlighting techniques in tutorial videos on students’ learning in organic chemistry

ABSTRACT Research in science education agrees that one of the key challenges of learners in the discipline is certainly connecting domain-specific representations to the underlying concepts. One way of supporting students to make applicable connections is using purposefully designed highlighting techniques in multimedia instructions. In order to examine the influence of different highlighting techniques on learning, 171 chemistry undergraduate students were provided with tutorial videos either with static, dynamic or without highlighting. The results show that students viewing tutorial videos with dynamic highlighting gave more sophisticated answers in direct retention tasks. Furthermore, results indicate that low prior knowledge is compensated by both static and dynamic highlighting techniques. This finding is supported by causal mediation analysis, which indicates that the effect of prior knowledge is moderated by the different highlighting techniques. Besides student learning outcomes, students’ evaluation of the different tutorial videos shows significant benefits of the highlighted instructions in terms of perceiving higher comprehensibility. The results support the use of appropriate highlighting techniques in instructional formats to foster a stronger link between conceptual knowledge and representations.

Introducing DNA Nanosensor to Undergraduate Students: Rapid Non-Cross-Linking Aggregation of DNA-Functionalized Gold Nanoparticles for Colorimetric DNA Assay

Demonstration of a colorimetric approach for nucleic acid detection represents an attractive educational experiment for chemistry undergraduate students in the time of coronavirus pandemic. Herein, a rapid and vivid detection method that visualizes the presence of a specific DNA sequence is described. The plasmon resonance of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) (∼20 nm in diameter) endows a red color to DNA-functionalized gold nanoparticles (DNA-AuNPs) in a colloidal solution. Simply upon addition of a sample containing the complementary DNA sequence, the DNA-AuNPs dispersed in a strong ionic solution can spontaneously aggregate in minutes and turn to be purple in color, which can be detected using UV–visible spectroscopy as well as the naked eye. In contrast, the DNA-AuNPs remain highly dispersed as a reddish colloid even at high ionic strength when the DNA sequence is terminally mismatched or overhung. According to the teaching experience, this DNA testing experiment can be accomplished by students in pairs or groups under instruction in a three-day lab session. Given the rapid and fail-proof DNA testing, the testing method is also well-suited for hands-on introduction of analytical chemistry and nanotechnology to chemistry freshman and high school students.

CADMIO: Creating and Curating an Educational YouTube Channel with Chemistry Videos

YouTube is one of the most known and used social networks among students in the world, and undergraduate chemistry students are no exception. Undeniably, YouTube can offer several advantages for complementing university lessons in an asynchronous manner. There are many chemistry channels available on the internet; however, they are mainly too general or run by nonprofessionals, resulting in misconceptions or inaccuracies that lead to student confusion. In this contribution, we present CADMIO, a peer-to-peer reviewed YouTube channel with more than 60 videos in Spanish language, 2,550 subscribers, and 6,000 hours of accumulated views over the first year. These videos focus on introductory and advanced topics in inorganic chemistry. CADMIO is a powerful, versatile, and useful didactic tool, in which each video lesson presents basic concepts in a clear and concise way, thorough methodologies to enhance problem-solving skills, and an important variety of exercises to help students learning. The wonderful and outstanding response of CADMIO on the web and in the Faculty of Chemistry encourages us to improve the channel, and recently, it has even become a Social Service program in Mexico. Our unique concept for revised video content, secured by an editorial board consisting of professors at the Facultad de Quı́mica, UNAM, make CADMIO a truthful tool for teaching and learning chemistry.

Machine Learning for Functional Group Identification in Vibrational Spectroscopy: A Pedagogical Lab for Undergraduate Chemistry Students

Techniques from the branch of artificial intelligence known as machine learning (ML) have been applied to a wide range of problems in chemistry. Nonetheless, there are very few examples of pedagogical activities to introduce ML to chemistry students in the chemistry education literature. Here we report a computational activity that introduces undergraduate physical chemistry students to ML in the context of vibrational spectroscopy. In the first part of the activity, students use ML binary classification algorithms to distinguish between carbonyl-containing and noncarbonyl-containing molecules on the basis of their infrared absorption spectra. In the second part of the activity, students test modifications to this basic analysis including different analysis parameters, different ML algorithms, and different test data sets. In a final extension of the activity, students implement a multiclass classification to predict whether carbonyl-containing molecules contain a ketone, a carboxylic acid, or another carbonyl group. This activity is designed to introduce students both to the basic workflow of a ML classification analysis and to some of the ways in which ML analyses can fail. We provide a comprehensive handout for the activity, including theoretical background and a detailed protocol, as well as data sets and code to implement the exercise in Python or Mathematica. This activity is designed as a standalone exercise for physical chemistry lab classes but can also be integrated with courses or modules on vibrational spectroscopy and computational chemistry. On the basis of student surveys, we conclude that this activity was successful in introducing students to applications of ML in chemistry.

Experiment to Teach Multiple Melting Phenomena in Semicrystalline Polymers Using Differential Scanning Calorimetry

This article describes a laboratory experiment used to investigate the phenomenon of multiple melting in polymers. The experiment is aimed at the level of senior undergraduate chemistry students able to carry out the investigation in a research-style approach, working together in small groups. The experiment highlights characteristic thermal behavioral differences between polymers and small organic molecules. It demonstrates that shifts in observed melting temperature upon heating are typically due to inherent metastability of the polymer system and not to impurities in the sample, for example. Differential scanning calorimetry is used to demonstrate and explore this fundamental yet contemporary subject of polymer melting, using a well-known and commercially available polymer, isotactic polystyrene. Effects of thermal history of the sample, including crystallization temperature and crystallization time, as well as analysis conditions including heating rate, on the melting point of the polymer solid are each investigated. The experiment provides a hands-on example of structure-property relationships in polymer science.

The varied experience of undergraduate students learning chemistry in virtual reality laboratories

Over the past two decades, there has been increased interest in understanding the prospects of virtual reality laboratories (VR Labs) in science education. VR Labs are designed to emulate a physical teaching laboratory through an immersive computer experience that affords intimate and intuitive interaction. According to a recent literature review, there is a scantiness of varied theoretical and methodological approaches concerning the student learning experience with VR Labs. Most of the studies were evaluative, seeking to establish the efficacy of VR Labs for meeting specific needs under the expectation that the mere use of them would bring about predetermined student outcomes. A phenomenographic investigation, which assumes that a person's perception is informed by their broader environment and results in multiple perspectives of the same phenomena was employed to investigate the various ways undergraduate chemistry students' experience learning with VR Labs. The inquiry is situated in an undergraduate chemistry course, where the VR Labs aligned with the course curriculum. From a purposive sample of six diverse participants, four qualitatively different experiences were discovered, which included: a) VR Labs hindered my ability to learn b) the amount of content knowledge I have and/or my prior experience influenced my learning c) the affordances I perceived enhanced my learning and d) VR Labs removed barriers I perceived to learning. The more comprehensive understanding provided by this study informs the design and development of new pedagogical approaches and innovative forms of curriculum.

Water Quality Characterization Using ASTM Methods in an Undergraduate Advanced Instrumental Analysis Laboratory Course

Water analysis is an excellent interdisciplinary topic for project-based learning. An undergraduate course was designed to engage the senior undergraduate chemistry students in a real-life experience. In this course, students developed methodologies based on published American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) methods for the measurement of fluoride, phenols, and metals in real water samples. The procedures were utilized to analyze target analytes in real water samples from various sources, such as seawater, sewage water, swimming pool water, tap water, and drinking water in the eastern province of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). These areas are profoundly affected by urbanization. The students analyzed the samples by employing a portable total dissolved solids (TDS) meter, a pH/ion-selective electrode (ISE) benchtop meter, an inductively coupled plasma–optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES), and a gas chromatography–flame ionization detector (GC-FID). The ASTM methods allowed the students to gather research-level data and study regional environmental issues. The students prepared and presented their results at the departmental conference. Through the water analysis project, students acquired field and laboratory research skills, performed a quantitative analysis of data sets, developed collaborative interactions, as well as utilized their writing and communication skills. The exposure of students to these research tools provided them with experience in dealing with the limitations of trace level analysis in real samples. The outcome of this study provided the students with an overview of how their theoretical knowledge was connected to the country’s limited water sources and pollution problems.

Introducing Catalysis to Undergraduate Chemistry Students: Testing a Ru–NHC Complex in the Selective Dehydrogenative Coupling of Hydrosilanes and Alcohols

This work describes a complete laboratory experiment that involves the synthesis of a ruthenium complex [Ru(p-cym)(NHC)Cl2] (NHC = N-heterocyclic carbene) and its use as a catalyst for the coupling of hydrosilanes and alcohols. The hydrogen gas produced in the reaction is measured using an inverted buret to trap the gas which allows student to monitor the evolution of the reaction. The complete experience constitutes an opportunity to focus on experimental skills and fundamental concepts in organometallic chemistry and catalysis.