The chemical experiment is designed for undergraduates majoring in chemistry, energy, and environment. The intended purpose is that the students will comprehend the reaction mechanism of photocatalytic reduction of CO[subscript 2] through hands-on experiments and deepen their understanding of sustainable energy technologies. More importantly, the…

The current work develops intelligent tutoring aspects for the DiscoverOChem learning platform. Intelligent tutoring systems are technology-based learning systems that can adapt the learning experience to better serve individual users. DiscoverOChem (www.discoverochem.com) is a free Internet-based platform for learning undergraduate-level organic…

Enzymes provide attractive targets for drug development. Quantitative analysis of enzyme reactions can lead to rational drug discovery. For undergraduates majoring in biochemistry or pharmacy and engaged in drug discovery-related work, it is essential to acquire a comprehensive understanding of enzyme kinetics, including experimental methods and…

Mindset theory describes a context-dependent belief system on the degree that intelligence can change with effort. Students' chemistry mindsets may predict students' behavioral responses to challenges they experience within a chemistry course. This study was designed to investigate whether challenges mediate the relationship between chemistry…

The essential component of expanding an undergraduate curriculum is the inclusion of lab experiments in nanoscience and nanomaterials, which significantly impact health and the environment through their use in food, cosmetics, agriculture, and medicine. We designed a laboratory experiment based on the atomic force microscopy (AFM) analysis of the…

Undergraduate research initiatives such as mentoring programs, conferences, and journals typically focus on the later stages of undergraduate studies. It is not unusual for a student to reach the final year of their program without developing their awareness of research within their discipline or their institution. SUREbyts is a project that…

In both general chemistry and analytical chemistry courses, students are introduced to the concept of predominant species in solution when discussing acid/base chemistry. Speciation diagrams are often used to illustrate the concept and predict the relative abundance of species in solution. Herein, we describe a laboratory experiment for an…

Undergraduate chemistry laboratory instruction can be considered from many perspectives and addresses multiple educational aims. We critically assess an inventory of "Cognitive Tasks of Experimental Research" for its applicability to chemistry laboratory teaching, and then apply it to an integrated upper-level laboratory course as an…

The pharmaceutical industry relies heavily on analytical techniques for identifying and characterizing drug compounds. In this experiment, undergraduate pharmacy students explored the applications of near-infrared spectroscopy for pharmaceutical analysis and its potential for identifying patterns and relationships among pharmaceutical samples. In…

Commonly used methods to simulate the oxidation-reduction (redox) titration curves include the three-step method and the rigorous method. The simple three-step method simulates the redox titration curve with the assumption that the reaction is complete, which is widely used in undergraduate quantitative analysis courses. For the rigorous…

Researchers and educators have been exploring systems thinking (ST) in chemistry education to better equip citizens for 21st century challenges; however, little is known about students' perspectives and experiences. In this study, we investigated students' perspectives of ST and their experiences with ST activities. We designed and implemented a…

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship and prediction of motivation, conceptual understanding, and critical thinking on metacognition in introductory physics. A correlational research design with multiple regression analysis was used to analyze the data from 84 first-year pre-engineering students from two public universities in…

There is widespread misuse of statistics in research, particularly in the life sciences, which is one of the contributing factors to reproducibility concerns in research. However, the formal quantitative training that life sciences research trainees receive is often quite limited. Our survey of statistics requirements in undergraduate life…

University Physics is a foundational course offered to undergraduate students in science and engineering programs outside of physics majors and it represents a foundational discipline in science and engineering education. However, traditional University Physics instruction has many areas in need of improvement. A questionnaire for undergraduate…

A vibrant ecosystem of innovation hinges on undergraduate science programs that inclusively deepen conceptual understanding, develop scientific competencies, and spark wonder and appreciation for science. To create this ecosystem, we need to influence multiple components of the system, including faculty as well as culture (i.e., rules, goals, and…