A national survey on chemistry instructional laboratories was administered to faculty members at four-year postsecondary institutions in the United States for the purpose of exploring levels of inquiry-based instruction implemented in laboratory courses. Respondents were asked to rate the level of choice their students had in deciding six key…

Despite extensive conceptualization of ions as hard spheres in most textbooks, solid-state structures are more accurately modeled as overlapping soft spheres that better reflect the size of the ions. The corresponding soft-sphere ionic radii of alkali and halide ions can be empirically established from the partial molar volume of the ions in…

Laboratory activities are a prevalent and essential part of chemistry learning because of their potential to help students develop problem solving abilities, visualize chemistry concepts learned in lecture, and gain practical skills. However, learning in the laboratory environment is not without its challenges. For example, cookbook-style…

Graphic Organizers are visual and graphic display that illustrates the correlations between facts, terms, and ideas with a learning task. Integrating Graphic Organizers can enhance the efficiency of the teacher's delivery of lessons and students' learning. However, no study had been conducted in using graphic organizers in the process of teaching…

To potentially engage students in "doing organic chemistry", organic chemistry courses should foreground weaving together structure- and energy-related ideas to construct causal accounts for phenomena. Here, we investigate whether enrolling in an organic chemistry course that places substantial emphasis ([approximately]50% of total…

Background: Learning assistants (LAs) in undergraduate STEM lectures facilitate discussions between students in small groups. In this research study, we investigate the impact of LA facilitation on student learning as it occurs during LA-student interactions. To do so, our work builds on two sociocultural frameworks focused on LA facilitation and…

The current study examines the progress of 8th-grade student drawings and written explanations of chemical phenomenon, subsequent to being involved in an instructional strategy that explicitly involves drawing as a supportive toll to construct scientific explanations. Additionally, the study examines the association between the representation of…

This experiment provides students with a thorough understanding of electrolysis and the parameters that most greatly impact optimization of this process. In this laboratory exercise, students will focus on the anodization of bismuth metal to develop thin oxide films. When designing an electrolytic cell devoted to anodization, there are several…

With the advancements in broad-spectrum sunscreens and the recent bans on benzene-based sunscreens due to their environmental toxicity, there has been a push toward broad-spectrum sunscreens containing in organic active ingredients. In this study, a procedure was developed to analyze the particle size and size distribution of inorganic active…

This paper reports on how a group of students think when trying to solve a set of thermodynamic revision exercises in the context of collaborative small group conversation at the undergraduate level. The revision exercises involved exploring the relationship between enthalpy and temperature, entropy and temperature, and entropy of a gas under…

One of the goals of science education is to help students make sense of the world around them. To that end, it is critical that students understand the central ideas in each discipline like, in chemistry, energy and interactions. These ideas are of particular importance because they are directly related to one another and are relevant across other…

A procedure for one-pot preparation and characterization of silver 1D nanostructures is described. The main advantages of this synthetic approach are the simplicity and reproducibility, where the size of the final product can be controlled just by changing the reaction time. This experiment is designed as a laboratory introduction to colloidal…

Game-based learning (GBL) may address the unique characteristics of a single subject such as chemistry. Previous systematic reviews on the effects of GBL have yielded contradictory results concerning cognitive and motivational outcomes. This meta-analysis aims to: (a) estimate the overall effect size of GBL in chemistry education on cognitive,…

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra are among the most common visualizations used by chemists in both academic and industrial settings, where they serve as both representations of submicroscopic entities and tools that support social discourse. The ability to use words to communicate about features within NMR spectra is thus an essential…

Although demonstrations play a central role in teaching and learning chemistry, the effects of concrete setup principles have rarely been subject to systematic empirical studies. According to the left-to-right principle, the educator should begin with the first step of a reaction in the upper left part of the setup and then place the following…