Two linked courses examining conservation science and art history of 17th-century Dutch painting are described. The two courses have been taught on campus and, most recently, as study-abroad courses in collaboration with the Center for European Studies, Universiteit Maastricht, The Netherlands. The highly interdisciplinary courses are intense, yet…

When an examination consists, in whole or in part, of constructed response items, it is a common practice to allow the examinee to choose among a variety of questions. This procedure is usually adopted so that the limited number of items that can be completed in the allotted time does not unfairly affect the examinee. This results in the de facto…

The aim of this study was to delineate departmental differences in the length of time that doctoral students take to receive their degrees and the institutional characteristics linked with it, being as comprehensive as possible in the institutional characteristics examined and disentangling the confounding effects of student characteristics.…

The primary purpose of this study was to understand what happens when some aspects of the constructivist approach, namely prediction, explanation, student-centered, and teacher-centered discussions, are applied to science teaching. The study involved 363 junior high school students in Taiwan. It combined the effectiveness of four alternative…

A study described, analyzed, and interpreted the ways an effective high school teacher used literacy activities (reading, writing, and discussion) to teach chemistry to first-year chemistry students. The teacher selected was considered effective by peers and students and professed to intentionally use literacy activities as a means of teaching…

This study investigated how academic norms, expectations and rules affect the experiences of graduate students, particularly in regards to reported academic misconduct at disciplinary and departmental levels. The study used a hierarchical linear analysis with data from a nationwide survey of 2,000 graduate students in chemistry, civil engineering,…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of seven chemistry learning centers for use in an ongoing preschool education program. The seven centers piloted were: (1) Observing Color Changes; (2) Making Bubbles; (3) Using a Thermometer; (4) Balancing; (5) Classifying Colors; (6) Cooking; and (7) Sink or Float. All of the centers…

Incident identification graphs can be used to diagnose areas of difficulty in a subject's problem-solving schema at the episodic level. In this study, 22 subjects (2 experts and 20 novices) categorized into five problem-solving groups (expert, high algorithmic/high conceptual, low algorithmic/high conceptual, high algorithmic/low conceptual, and…

The purpose of this study is to analyze the perceived thought processes of several students as they learn, and then attempt to solve problems about chemical equilibrium. Four tenth grade students in Taipei, Taiwan, were audiotaped as they individually attempted to solve problems. The problems were such that they required more than mere recall or…

The 18 brief articles contained in this booklet reflect an attempt by science and math teachers in Nevada to explore ways to rekindle the exhileration of discovery for themselves and their students that began with the knolwedge explosion that followed the launching of Sputnik in 1957 but that was eventually washed away in a flood of…

Instructional materials are provided for a course that covers basic concepts of physics and chemistry. Designed for use in a workplace literacy project developed by Mercer County Community College (New Jersey) and its partners, the course describes applications of these concepts to real-life situations, with an emphasis on applications of…

The Zimbabwe Secondary School Science Project (ZIM-SCI) developed student study guides, corresponding teaching guides, and science kits for a low-cost science course which could be taught during the first 2 years of secondary school without the aid of qualified teachers and conventional laboratories. This teaching guide, designed to be read in…

Undergraduates from chemical engineering, applied chemistry, and environmental science courses, together with first-year postgraduate research students in electrochemical technology, are provided with an experiment that demonstrates the reduction of dissolved oxygen in aerated seawater at 25°C. Oxygen reduction is examined using linear sweep…

This handbook is based on a list of essential topics that should be mastered by the student who subsequently plans to pursue college chemistry. Chapters include: (1) "Introduction" (describing a position paper and the background of the handbook); (2) "Essential General Topics and Objectives"; (3) "Testing Students"…

Chemistry anxiety exists among nursing students as well as other allied health professions. The causes for this anxiety may be attributed to three variables. Chemistry: (1) is perceived as difficult; (2) involves a multitude of facts; and (3) is not connected to reality. A curriculum with a simulation format has been developed to help Israeli…