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The association between student motivation and learning, and changes in motivation across a course, were evaluated for students enrolled in one-semester foundation-level inorganic chemistry courses at multiple postsecondary institutions across the United States. The Academic Motivation Scale for Chemistry (AMS-Chemistry) and the Foundations of Inorganic Chemistry American Chemical Society Exam (i.e., a content knowledge measure) were used in this study. Evidence of validity, reliability, and longitudinal measurement invariance for data obtained from the AMS-Chemistry instrument with this population were found using methodologies appropriate for ordinal, non-parametric data. Positive and significant associations between intrinsic motivation measures and academic performance corroborate theoretical and empirical investigations; however, a lack of pre/post changes in motivation suggest that motivation may be less malleable in courses primarily populated by chemistry majors. Implications for inorganic chemistry instructors include paths for incorporating engaging pedagogies known to promote intrinsic motivation and methods for incorporating affect measures into assessment practices. Implications for researchers include a need for more work that disaggregates chemistry majors when evaluating relationships between affect and learning, and when making pre/post comparisons. Additionally, this work provides an example of how to implement more appropriate methods for treating data in studies using Likert-type responses and nested data.

 

For many who passed through his classroom, Richard Andersen demonstrated how inorganic chemistry can be taught by incorporating the research literature. The Interactive Online Network of Inorganic Chemists (IONiC) through its website and summer workshops for faculty has supported the development and sharing of more than a hundred exercises or “learning objects” derived from articles highlighting research across the inorganic field. Faculty can adapt and implement these learning objects in their own classrooms to achieve goals such as demonstrating historical context, teaching course material via current research, and elaborating on the scientific process. Literature discussion learning objects highlight current and past research in inorganic chemistry and teach students both chemistry content and how the body of inorganic knowledge is constructed.