The central goal of this qualitative research study was to uncover major implicit assumptions that students with different levels of training in the discipline apply when thinking and making decisions about chemical reactions used to make a desired product. In particular, we elicited different ways of conceptualizing why chemical reactions happen…

We report the results of a phenomenographic analysis of faculty beliefs about the purposes for teaching upper-division physical chemistry courses in the undergraduate curriculum. A purposeful sampling strategy was used to recruit a diverse group of faculty for interviews. Collectively, the participating faculty regularly teach or have taught…