Undergraduate Chemistry Research Articles

Are undergraduate chemistry programs in crisis?

Are undergraduate chemistry programs in crisis?

Reaction Optimization Experiment for Undergraduate Capstone Organic Chemistry Laboratory Course

Reaction Optimization Experiment for Undergraduate Capstone Organic Chemistry Laboratory Course

Active Learning in the Extraction of Organic Compounds: A Study of Undergraduate Chemistry Students

Active Learning in the Extraction of Organic Compounds: A Study of Undergraduate Chemistry Students

Virtual Reality in an Eco-Niche Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Laboratory Course: New Practice in Chemistry Lab Teaching

Virtual Reality in an Eco-Niche Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Laboratory Course: New Practice in Chemistry Lab Teaching

Social and Emotional Learning as Experienced by Students in Undergraduate General Chemistry Labs

Students can meticulously perform laboratory techniques and be proficient in writing lab reports yet report negative affective experiences within the chemistry teaching labs. This study addresses this contradiction by studying students’ experiences using a Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) framework to qualitatively and deductively analyze semi-structured student interviews (N=15). The interviews followed the students’ completion of introductory chemistry and focused on their experiences with the laboratories. What emerged from this analysis were the SEL competencies intertwining with all aspects of the teaching labs as students worked with their lab partners, peers, and teaching assistants. The labs provide a unique environment for students to apply their SEL skills, including effective relationship and self-management skills. Despite students using and relying on their SEL skills, they are not always supported in lab design, and this presents a barrier to student success and a positive learning experience associated with the teaching labs. Given this, there is a need to change chemistry laboratory teaching practices and curricula to emphasize support and learning outcomes related to SEL. These findings were used to implement changes to the first-year labs to support SEL competencies, such as designing and implementing a TA manual, providing students with tips for dividing lab procedures, and offering more resources including rubrics.

A Multiweek Experimental Project Bringing Real-World Lithium Batteries into a Third-Year Undergraduate Analytical Chemistry Laboratory

A Multiweek Experimental Project Bringing Real-World Lithium Batteries into a Third-Year Undergraduate Analytical Chemistry Laboratory

Fostering scientific reasoning competencies: investigating impacts of cross- and within-content area experimentation using the competency triad

ABSTRACT Educational standards and science education research suggest that experiments can be used to foster scientific reasoning competencies. So far, little is known about whether to sequence experiments from one or multiple content areas for this purpose. Therefore, we compared two sequences in an experimental study to investigate the influence of content areas of experiments on competencies’ development: Based on the same underlying structure, the first, homogeneous sequence includes four kinetics experiments. The second, heterogeneous sequence involves experiments from kinetics, thermodynamics, and redox chemistry. A total of 97 students participating in undergraduate chemistry lab courses were randomly assigned to one of the sequences. The changes in competencies within the sequences were compared based on the ‘competency triad’ differentiating between underlying knowledge (dispositions), the use of this knowledge (processes), and the quality of the resulting investigations (products). The results show that both sequences are comparably suitable to foster scientific reasoning competencies. However, in the post-experiments, we found a tendency of increased inadequate or irrelevant content-related reasoning by bringing in and conflating concepts from previous experiments such as activation energy or the chemical equilibrium (in particular Le Chatelier's principle). We discuss these findings concerning the consequences of sequencing experiments for fostering scientific reasoning.

Design and Implementation of a Mentorship Course That Utilizes Senior Undergraduate Chemistry Students As Learning Assistants in the Introductory Chemistry Laboratory to Foster Transferable Skill Development

Design and Implementation of a Mentorship Course That Utilizes Senior Undergraduate Chemistry Students As Learning Assistants in the Introductory Chemistry Laboratory to Foster Transferable Skill Development

Investigating Attitudinal Profiles and Disparities in Attitudes among Historically Marginalized Undergraduate Chemistry Students

Investigating Attitudinal Profiles and Disparities in Attitudes among Historically Marginalized Undergraduate Chemistry Students

Do performance goals and fixed mindset explicate the relations between stereotype threat and achievement? Examining differences between racially marginalized and White students in STEM

This study examined whether performance goal orientations and mindset beliefs explicate the negative relation of ethnic stereotype threat with achievement and whether these processes vary depending on students' membership in a historically minoritized group. Multigroup analyses of undergraduate chemistry students (N = 1376) indicated that perceived ethnic stereotype threat was associated with lower achievement regardless of whether students were from underrepresented minority groups (URM). For URM students, compared to White students, ethnic stereotype threat more strongly predicted performance-avoidance goals. Further, fixed mindset beliefs moderated the relation of ethnic stereotype threat with performance goals for White students only. The relations of stereotype threat with performance goals were stronger for White students with a greater fixed mindset. Findings imply that while ethnic stereotype threat has the potential to detrimentally impact both URM and White students, motivational beliefs may exert somewhat distinct influences within each group, shaping the outcomes of stereotype threat. Educational relevanceIn our society, there are pervasive stereotypes about who can achieve success in competitive fields. Science learning contexts are no exception. In these contexts, and particularly among racially-marginalized students, anxieties about performing poorly and confirming stereotypes are prevalent, resulting in lower achievement for this student group (i.e., stereotype threat). In this study, we examined the consequences of ethnic stereotype threat for racially-marginalized and White students separately. Results revealed that ethnic stereotype threat led to lower science grades for both racially-marginalized and White students. For racially-marginalized students, ethnic stereotype threat also steered them toward goals focused less on growth and learning and more on avoiding looking incompetent to others (i.e., performance-avoidance goals). Further, for White students, a stronger belief that intelligence is fixed and cannot be improved (i.e., fixed mindset belief) exacerbated the negative effects of stereotype threat on their goal orientations, leading them to prioritize appearing intelligent and avoiding seeming incompetent to others. This research highlights the impact of ethnic stereotype threat on marginalized and non-marginalized students' motivational beliefs and achievement.

Recommendations for Improving End-User Programming Education: A Case Study with Undergraduate Chemistry Students.

Programming is widespread in multiple domains and is being integrated into various discipline-specific university courses where, like students in a typical introductory computing course, students from other disciplines face challenges with learning to program. We offer a case study in which we study undergraduate students majoring in either chemistry or biochemistry as they learn programming in a physical chemistry course sequence. Using surveys and think-aloud sessions with students, we conducted a thematic content analysis to explain the challenges they face in this endeavor. We found that students struggled to transfer their programming knowledge to new representations and problems, and they did not have strategies in place for solving problems with programming. These facts combine to lower students' confidence in their programming abilities, making it less likely that they will reach for computing to help solve domain-specific problems. We recommend that students in end-user programming contexts be explicitly taught the skills of abstraction, decomposition, and metacognitive awareness as they pertain to programming.

Student Perceptions of Undergraduate Chemistry Laboratory Shaped by the COVID-19 Pandemic

Student Perceptions of Undergraduate Chemistry Laboratory Shaped by the COVID-19 Pandemic

Teaching Undergraduate Students Heterogeneous Electrocatalytic Water Oxidation Using Cyclic Voltammetry and Python Simulation

Undergraduate students are motivated and engaged to persist in STEM by learning skills to combat climate change and reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) generation. Water electrolysis is not only an important process to produce the clean energy source hydrogen (H2), but also a classical reaction discussed in the undergraduate chemistry curriculum.In this talk, we will discuss our efforts of developing an upper division laboratory to teach undergraduate students basic concepts in electrochemistry via the heterogeneous anodic electrocatalytic water oxidation in water electrolysis.1Both experimental work and simulation practices with Python were implemented in this laboratory. Key concepts including chemical reversibility, electrochemical reversibility and kinetics of heterogeneous charge transfer were introduced to students in the learning outcomes. The integrated experience of mini lectures, hands-on experience of materials preparation and electrochemical characterizations along with the simulations helped enhance students’ learning. Additionally, the experience of using Python simulations motivates students to learn programming, which will help prepare them for the workforce and other STEM careers. Chem. Educ. 2023, 100, 8, 3036–3043

Teaching abductive reasoning for use as a problem-solving tool in organic chemistry and beyond

The second-year undergraduate Organic Chemistry course sequence is often cited as one of the most, if not the most, challenging for students in the US. Thus, a persistent question remains: What is it about Organic Chemistry that makes the course so difficult for students? Herein, we put forward the hypothesis that a new mode of thinking and problem solving is expected of the students; these skills have not yet been developed in their prior scientific coursework and are often not deliberately taught in Organic Chemistry. This form of reasoning and problem solving, known as abductive reasoning, is highlighted for its connection to medical diagnosis and scientific thinking. We provide examples to showcase how instructors could explicitly foreground the reasoning process in their classroom. Ultimately, we argue that teaching how to reason using abduction may benefit students in both the short term (in the course) and the long term (in their careers as scientists and medical practitioners).

Metal-Free Ring-Opening Polymerization of Propylene Oxide: Synthesis and Characterization of Polyether in the Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Laboratory

Metal-Free Ring-Opening Polymerization of Propylene Oxide: Synthesis and Characterization of Polyether in the Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Laboratory

The influence of representations on task difficulty in organic chemistry: an exploration using a novel paired-items test instrument

ABSTRACT The intricate relationship between representational competence and content knowledge in organic chemistry has been widely debated, and the ways in which representations contribute to task difficulty, particularly in assessment, remain unclear. This paper presents a multiple-choice test instrument for assessing individuals’ knowledge of fundamental concepts – such as nomenclature and basic reaction mechanisms – in organic chemistry using item pairs with and without representations. We conducted a pilot test of the instrument with 55 undergraduate students and administered the final version to 357 undergraduate chemistry students from seven German universities. We used the Rasch methodology for psychometric analysis to identify sound and reliable test properties. A task-difficulty comparison revealed no differences between the item pairs with and those without representations. Hierarchical regression suggests that the complexity and cognitive processes involved in a task influence its difficulty. Our data suggest that the relationship between representational competence and content knowledge may not be disentangled when item difficulty is considered. We argue that representational competence and content knowledge might not represent separate constructs, which is in line with the literature on representational dilemmas: representations cannot be taught without content knowledge, and content knowledge cannot be taught without the use of representations.

A Computer Laboratory for the Calculation of the Heat Capacity of a Peptide Unfolding Transition

ABSTRACT We present the implementation of a computer simulation laboratory for the calculation of the heat capacity of the folding-unfolding pseudo phase transition of a polyalanine Ala30 α-helix, using molecular dynamics simulations. Unlike conventional calorimetry experiments, which provide a macroscopic interpretation of the heat capacity, the computer laboratory additionally offers a molecular perspective of the energy exchange processes that lead to the peak of the heat capacity at the phase transition, as well as the statistical mechanical interpretation of the phase transition. The exercise is targeted toward 1st- or 2nd-year students of biophysics in the context of an undergraduate physical chemistry course. We use a graphical web interface to overcome the steep learning barriers associated with command line interactions in commonly used molecular dynamics protocols. The web interface (VIKING) also handles communication with computing hardware in the background, so that students with limited or no programming experience can launch and analyze the simulations easily. A collaboration between the VIKING support team and responsible teachers is required to set up VIKING. We also present a solution in which simulations can be launched on students’ own computers, if some command line knowledge can be expected. The laboratory can also be repurposed for students of various backgrounds (physics, chemistry, biology, or engineering) and scholastic levels (undergraduate or graduate).

Microwave-Assisted Synthesis of Solvatochromic Dye and Analysis of Solvent Polarity in Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Laboratory

Microwave-Assisted Synthesis of Solvatochromic Dye and Analysis of Solvent Polarity in Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Laboratory

The effect of Virtual Laboratories on the Academic Achievement of Undergraduate Chemistry Students: A Quasi-Experimental Study at Dilla University, Southern Ethiopia (Preprint)

The effect of Virtual Laboratories on the Academic Achievement of Undergraduate Chemistry Students: A Quasi-Experimental Study at Dilla University, Southern Ethiopia (Preprint)

Merging Inline NMR Monitoring and Flow Chemistry in the Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Laboratory

Merging Inline NMR Monitoring and Flow Chemistry in the Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Laboratory