Resonance is a foundational organic chemistry concept, but it is consistently misunderstood by undergraduate students. The development of a concept inventory--a multiple-choice assessment where the incorrect answer choices stem from commonly held alternate conceptions--on the concept of resonance could help organic chemistry instructors quickly…

Identifying effective methods of assessment and developing robust assessments are key areas of research in chemistry education. This research is needed to evaluate instructional innovations and curricular reform. In this primer, we advocate for the use of a type of assessment, ordered multiple-choice (OMC), across postsecondary chemistry. OMC…

This paper deals with the advantages and disadvantages to both the faculty member and to the students of using the answer-until-correct multiple-choice test format for a class specifically designed for non-STEM majors, who need a breath of knowledge science course. Comments from students are given about why they prefer answer-until-correct…

Digital automated assessment is a valuable and time-efficient tool for educators to provide immediate and objective feedback to learners. Automated assessment, however, puts high demands on the quality of the questions, alignment with the intended learning outcomes, and the quality of the feedback provided to the learners. We here describe the…

The non-major's two-semester organic chemistry course at UPR-RP aims at developing a more integrated and meaningful understanding of the fundamentals of Organic Chemistry. To achieve this goal, we have implemented a novel instructional design that focuses on nine terminal objectives. The nine terminal objectives describe what students should be…

Assessment and evaluation tools and instruments are developed to measure many things from content knowledge to misconceptions to student affect. The standard validation processes for these are regularly conducted and provide strong evidence for the validity of the measurements that are made. As part of the suite of validation tools available to…

Practical classes are an important and essential part of undergraduate programs in Chemical Engineering, as each experiment provides an opportunity to reinforce the theory of discrete unit operations that are taught elsewhere in the course. While an expensive pedagogical method, when practical sessions are delivered well, they can be one of the…

The COVID pandemic forced many higher education institutions to pivot and switch to an online learning environment with minimal preparation. This transition was put in place during the middle of the spring semester, in March. During this transition, instructors had to quickly learn the tools of online teaching, navigate platforms like Webex and…

On the basis of the results of two prior studies at the US Naval Academy (USNA), which described the choice of study resources and the self-reported learning approaches of students of differing achievement levels, the current investigation examines how students of differing achievement levels in general chemistry actually solve multiple-choice…

This report provides information about an interactive computer-based game named Nomenclature Bets and its utilization in the form of a tournament as a didactic strategy to enhance the students' interest in their studies of nomenclature of organic compounds. The game allows high school and first-year undergraduate students to review, in pairs, the…

Copying adjacent answer sheets on the oft-used multiple-choice exams can be prevented if exam material is scrambled. The latter mode has been a requirement for all exams of this type at McGill University for 26 years. Cheating by copying has been reduced to nearly zero in this time. The experiment carried out used permissive seating and a single…

Introductory chemistry courses are required as part of the undergraduate preparation necessary for entry into an array of professional programs. Given the varied priorities of the student population in these courses, it can be difficult to present the material such that students see their individual future academic priorities represented in each…

There are numerous benefits to answer-until-correct (AUC) approaches to multiple-choice testing, not the least of which is the straightforward allotment of partial credit. However, the benefits of granting partial credit can be tempered by the inevitable increase in test scores and by fears that such increases are further contaminated by a large…

A 14-item, multiple-choice diagnostic assessment tool, the quantum chemistry concept inventory or QCCI, is presented. Items were developed based on published student misconceptions and content coverage and then piloted and used in advanced physical chemistry undergraduate courses. In addition to the instrument itself, data from both a pretest,…

Students with an insufficient amount of time to study are becoming more prevalent in the general college population as many who enroll in college have competing responsibilities (full-time jobs, childcare, etc.). Such students are likely to choose study resources that they consider to be both effective and efficient. Students at the U.S. Naval…