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Incorporating real-life context through connections to research early in the curriculum can create meaningful learning opportunities that encourage students to engage deeply with classroom content to construct chemistry knowledge. Course-based undergraduate research experiences have been successful at integrating real-life context, but are often only incorporated into upper-level courses. To provide an additional pathway to foster interaction with research, four activities from an introductory chemistry discussion class were created to incorporate authentic research connections. Care was taken to incorporate metacognitive questions designed to help students make connections between their preexisting knowledge and course content. Marzano’s taxonomy was used to analyze the cognitive complexity of tasks, which increased in the revised activities, allowing for more opportunities for knowledge construction. Audio and written work of student groups as they worked through activities was collected. Qualitative analysis of student engagement revealed that control over the content of activities to incorporate opportunities for knowledge construction is not enough to facilitate students consciously engaging in meaningful learning. If instructors wish to promote students integrating chemistry knowledge into their existing framework, course instructors, including graduate teaching assistants, need to be trained on how to properly facilitate classroom experiences to increase the likelihood of success.
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Mass Is Better than Light: Students’ Perception of Using Spectrophotometry and Gravimetric Analysis to Determine the Formula of a Hydrate in the General Chemistry Lab
A key part of the practice of chemistry is the analysis of chemical composition, including through gravimetric analysis and spectrophotometry. However, the complexity of doing multiple calculations to obtain analytical evidence, such as that required to determine an empirical formula, presents a challenge if such analytical methods are to be understood by students and if they are to support meaningful learning about other chemical concepts and methods. In this study we investigate student use of spectrophotometry and gravimetric analysis to determine the number of water molecules in hydrates of copper (II) salts, a method previously described by Barlag and Nyasulu. Using phenomenography to analyze students reports through the lens of meaningful learning we identified four distinct perceptions and, within them, information of how students make sense of the complex analytical steps involved in the experiment. We identify how meaningful learning is present where students recognized that spectrophotometry was based on light-matter interactions (cognitive,) was faster and more accurate (psychomotor), and allowed students to express confidence in the process and their results (affective). However, it is also the case that meaningful learning was compromised where students had trouble conceptualizing spectrophotometry, saw it as a set of disconnected steps, and where they saw absorbance as a computer-generated value and not a property of the solution. This led to the perception that gravimetric analysis provided a more direct and understandable technique. We discuss the implications of these findings for chemistry education research (CER) and for curriculum development in the undergraduate teaching lab.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2111446
- PAR ID:
- 10540577
- Editor(s):
- Holme, Thomas A
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Chemical Society
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Chemical Education
- Volume:
- 101
- Issue:
- 5
- ISSN:
- 0021-9584
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1822 to 1835
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Chemical Education Research First Year Undergraduate/General, Laboratory instruction, Meaningful Learning, Phenomenography, Analytical chemistry, Gravimetric Analysis, Spectrophotometry, hydrates.
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c00076
