In this article we describe the development of the Chemistry Attitudes and Experiences Questionnaire (CAEQ) that measures first-year university chemistry students' attitude toward chemistry, chemistry self-efficacy, and learning experiences. The instrument was developed as part of a larger study and sought to fulfill a need for an instrument to…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the cooperative learning approach based on conceptual change conditions over traditional instruction on 10th grade students' conceptual understanding and achievement of computational problems related to chemical equilibrium concepts. The subjects of this study consisted of 87 tenth grade…

A clear and consistent finding of educational research has been the importance of active student responding. During lectures and discussions, active responding most often takes the form of student responses to teacher questions. This whole group responding to questions, however, does not permit every student to respond and does not assure that all…

This study aimed to identify the types of arguments promoted in various contexts common to a high school chemistry classroom, including lecture-discussion and laboratory activities. The study was guided by the following research question: What types of argument structures and schemes, if any, are promoted and engaged by students within various…

The preliminary efforts to engage students in the physical sciences through research projects in environmental chemistry are described. The successful involvement of two demographics, community college (CC) students and female students in cutting-edge chemistry research suggests that recruiting methods were effective and the feedback from…

In this paper we report on the development of a stochastic modeling course for chemical engineers in the fourth year of the Cambridge Chemical Engineering Syllabus. The general course structure is presented and an interactive Web module, which is used in the course, is presented in more detail. The central aim of the Web module is to enable…

The 2012 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education was designed to provide up-to-date information and to identify trends in the areas of teacher background and experience, curriculum and instruction, and the availability and use of instructional resources. A total of 7,752 science and mathematics teachers in schools across the United…

This paper presents findings of a project aimed to improve the quality of science education in Southeast Mexico by the creation of a community of practice among scientists, researchers and teachers, involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of a professional development program for mathematics, chemistry, biology and physics secondary…

With schools being asked to accomplish more and more, it is increasingly important to, whenever possible, address multiple goals in teaching. Educating the whole child dictates that we find ways to ensure our graduates are well-rounded, independent thinkers capable of becoming well-adjusted, contributing adults. Thus community service has become a…

The California Chemistry Diagnostic Test (CCDT) was developed by chemistry faculties at the University of California, California State University, and California Community College systems to address dissatisfaction with existing chemistry assessment instruments. The instrument was tested at 25 campuses of the 3 systems, after which Glendale…

Recent research literature has highlighted the interest of both teachers and researchers in using analogies to aid students' conceptual understanding. This appears to be especially relevant in secondary chemistry education due to the many abstract concepts that are included in the curricula. This paper reviews recent literature and considers…

The goals of secondary preservice science teacher education are to prepare future science teachers with competency in both science content knowledge and science teaching ability. The study reported in this paper investigated the development of pedagogical content knowledge of three preservice chemistry teachers in Taiwan during one year of a…

Demonstration of chemical reactions is a tool used in the teaching of inorganic descriptive chemistry to enable students to understand the fundamental concepts of chemistry through the use of concrete examples. For maximum benefit, students need to learn through discovery to observe, interpret, hypothesize, and draw conclusions; however, chemical…

A study was undertaken at California's Riverside Community College District to determine predictors of grades and success rates in a first-semester general chemistry course. Fall 1996 course outcomes were analyzed for two groups of students: 137 who had completed the course, successfully or not, and 178 who had dropped it. Data were also collected…

This research investigated the teaching of concrete chemical concepts and procedures to beginning chemistry students. Data were collected for this study from students enrolled in a university-level course for nonscience majors (n=171). In the topic studied, chemical bonding, four different teaching strategies were investigated: remediation of…