Transfer students are a growing population at four-year higher education institutions, especially in STEM degree programs. Though much work has explored the broad transfer student experience, the experience of these students within specific courses is understudied. Furthermore, knowledge of how transfer students approach STEM courses and their…

College science courses pose complex challenges to students. Textbooks are dense and laden with textbook features that may be confusing to students unfamiliar with science texts. Courses are especially challenging because they presuppose a certain degree of disciplinary literacy, or understanding of the knowledge and practices possessed by those…

This research investigates the effect of the context-based approach (CBA) 'Relating-Experiencing-ApplyingCooperating- Transferring' (REACT) strategy supported with crossword puzzles on achieving the associate degree students in the chemistry laboratory course on the topic of acid-base titrations. A crossword puzzle game and four contexts related…

Research on motivation has shown that students perform better when they perceive utility-value in their course. Utility-value is a domain of motivation that is reflective of the perceived importance or usefulness of a task for accomplishing future goals. In this study, students in a community college introductory chemistry course were tasked with…

How often do students get to delve deeper into the lives of the scientists that are typically mentioned in a general chemistry class? Most of the time, the scientist's name is mentioned, and then their scientific contribution becomes the main topic of discussion. A Scientist Report writing assignment has been used in a General Chemistry I course…

In this dissertation, I present readers with three studies about the ways in which science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research experiences impact undergraduate learning, perspectives, and academic/career activities. In the first two studies I focus on this topic by investigating the ways in which undergraduates were impacted…

As data science and instrumentation become key practices in common careers ranging from medicine to agriscience, chemistry as a core introductory course must introduce such topics to students early and at an accessible level. Advanced data acquisition and data science generally require expensive precision instrumentation and massive computation,…

The American Chemical Society (ACS) supports community college chemistry faculty by addressing curriculum, laboratory, and safety issues; however, these faculty are underrepresented in the ACS governance structure, which contributes to under-serving two-year college specific needs and low engagement by two-year faculty in the ACS.

Objective: Community colleges have considerable potential to grow the number of individuals who complete STEM baccalaureate degrees and to broaden access to educational opportunities in STEM. However, efforts to tap this potential have been hampered by nagging questions about whether community colleges prepare students adequately for advanced STEM…

Almost 70% of college students in California are required to take at least one remedial education course in mathematics or English, and of those students, only 40% continue to succeed in their educational goals of transfer or receiving a degree ("Student Success Scorecard," n.d.). Corequisite support remediation is an alternative to…

Chemistry students at community colleges often experience a lack of hands-on research opportunities, which can be a significant disadvantage when they transition to four-year universities. To address this, the Summer Chemistry Research Opportunities for Community College Students (SCROCCS) was established in 2022 by graduate students at the…

Can a class assignment covering the reading help students do better in an introductory chemistry class for nonmajors? Two sections of the same course have been compared where one section had a reading assignment that "forced" the students to interact with the text while the other class had the typical homework, quiz assignments, and…

The joint virtual global learning activity brought together college students from Jordan and New York City to learn about United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (UN SDG) #6 and explore the issues of water pollution and drinking water quality in both regions. The activity involved undergraduate students from Guttman Community College and…

There are numerous influential factors contributing to students' successful learning in introductory chemistry courses. One popularized factor is mathematical preparedness as gauged by a prerequisite mathematics grade or a standardized exam score. Less well known factors are students' attitude toward the subject of chemistry or students'…

Microplastic contamination of the environment is a major concern but detecting such contamination presents a challenge, particularly for particles <0.1 mm in size. Community scientists and students who participated in a plankton monitoring program and routinely examined samples of seawater using brightfield microscopy, often found fragments and…