Research on predictors of achievement in science is often targeted on more traditional content-based assessments and single student characteristics. At the same time, the development of skills in the field of scientific inquiry constitutes a focal point of interest for science education. Against this background, the purpose of this study was to…

Chemistry taught in high schools typically has group interaction components designed to provide opportunities for groups of two or more students to collaborate. Such opportunities, however, can lead to diminished learning among some students, as domination, group dissonance, and/or non-participation among group members can derail the collaborative…

Raman spectroscopy is a powerful experimental technique, yet it is often missing from the undergraduate physical chemistry laboratory curriculum. Tetrachloromethane (CCl[subscript 4]) is the ideal molecule for an introductory vibrational spectroscopy experiment and the symmetric stretch vibration contains fine structure due to isotopic variations…

The aim of the current study was to investigate students' mind wandering while reading different types of textual narrations (macroscopic and submicroscopic) in chemistry. Another goal was to determine the relationship between mind wandering and students' reading comprehension. The participants were 65 female ninth grade students in Oman. Using a…

A perspective is presented on how the representation mapping framework by Hahn and Chater (1998) may be used to characterize reasoning during problem solving in chemistry. To provide examples for testing the framework, an exploratory study was conducted with students and professors from three different courses in the middle of the undergraduate…

This study develops a tool to identify errors in the presentation of natural laws based on the epistemology and ontology of the Scientific Realism of Mario Bunge. The tool is able to identify errors of different types: (1) epistemological, in which the law is incorrectly presented as data correlation instead of as a pattern of causality; (2)…

Computational chemistry is commonly addressed in the quantum mechanics course of undergraduate physical chemistry curricula. Since quantum mechanics traditionally follows the thermodynamics course, there is a lack of curricula relating computational chemistry to thermodynamics. A method integrating molecular modeling software into a semester long…

Research in chemistry education has revealed that students going through their undergraduate and graduate studies in organic chemistry have a fragmented conceptual knowledge of the subject. Rote memorization, rule-based reasoning, and heuristic strategies seem to strongly influence students' performances. There appears to be a gap between what we…

A drug discovery project has been successfully implemented in a first-year general, organic, and biochemistry (GOB) health science course and second-year organic undergraduate chemistry course. This project allows students to apply the fundamental principles of chemistry and biology to a problem of medical significance, practice basic laboratory…

A three-tiered experiment for undergraduate Instrumental Analysis students is presented in which students characterize the solid-state thermal behavior of an active pharmaceutical ingredient (acetaminophen) and excipient (a-lactose hydrate) using differential scanning calorimetry, thermogravimetric analysis, and thermal microscopy. Students are…

The study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of Grade 9 Science Learner's Material on self-regulation and achievement of students in Chemistry. Specifically, it sought to find out if: (1) students exposed to Grade 9 Science Learner's Material (Grade 9 LM) have higher self-regulation in chemistry compared to those who were exposed to…

Inorganic chemistry at core consists of a vast array of molecules and chemical reactions. To master the subject, students must learn to think intelligently about this vast body of facts, a feat seldom accomplished in an introductory course. All too often, young undergraduate students perceive the field as an amorphous and illogical body of…

This experiment is designed to teach entry-level, nonchemistry-major students some basic organic chemistry through the procedure for making cosmetics. The experiment combines facial toner preparation with distillation techniques to create a stimulating learning environment. During the experiment, students perform a distillation to collect some…

This manuscript describes the relationship between students' redox understandings and confidence as measured by the Redox Concept Inventory (ROXCI) which assesses symbolic and particulate redox concepts. The ROXCI was administered to two samples of 1st- and 2nd-semester general chemistry students after the students were taught and tested on redox…

Determining student readiness for gateway chemistry courses and providing underprepared students effective remediation are important as student bodies are growing increasingly diverse in their precollege preparation. The effectiveness of the ACT Mathematics Test and the Whimbey Analytical Skills Inventory (WASI) in predicting student success in…