Many students currently entering college are able to solve mathematical problems but often do not understand the chemistry concepts underlying their calculations. High school chemistry teachers from Texas and the United States (US) were surveyed as to what topics they teach in their chemistry classes. A subset of Texas teachers was also interviewed about their instruction. The survey indicated that less-experienced Texas teachers are omitting a number of topics from their chemistry instruction, as compared to more experienced teachers. No differences were seen for those topics among US teachers. Chemistry textbooks from 1930 to the current 2002 Texas state adoptions were analyzed for inclusion of these topics. The only textbooks that were missing topics were from the 1930s. All others contained the topics. In general, textbooks have been increasing numbers of questions and problems for each topic, with the number of quantitative problems increasing at a greater rate than qualitative problems. Analysis of interview transcripts revealed that the main reason for omission of topics by less-experienced Texas chemistry teachers is that these topics are not assessed on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills science exam. Omitted topics were both qualitative and quantitative; the common factor is that they are not tested. School administrators reportedly reinforce this practice. Archival data regarding textbook usage by general chemistry students showed that students' course grades are not correlated to the amount of time they spend using their textbook. With topics included in textbooks, and no relationship between textbook usage and student grades, observed changes in chemistry courses must be due to changes in classroom instruction. With new course standards adopted by Texas for chemistry and the development of end-of-course exams, these changes should produce graduates who understand chemistry concepts as well as they solve mathematical chemistry problems. Repeating this study in 5 years may show that increasing the amount of chemistry tested will produce students entering college with a better conceptual background in chemistry.

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Science in Information Technology in Education

published_or_final_version / abstract / Education / Master / Master of Education

The problem of this study was to determine the effectiveness of using filmed courses in physics and chemistry in addition to the traditional lecture-laboratory courses in high school.

The problem of this study was to determine the relative effectiveness of the note-test system and the traditional lecture system of teaching basic college chemistry.

The problem with which this investigation is concerned is that of a survey of the various integrated laboratory sequence programs at college and university chemistry departments. A preliminary questionnaire served to determine which chemistry departments had tried an ILS approach. Those departments which responded that they had tried an ILS approach and were willing to answer a questionnaire concerning it were sent copies of the main questionnaire. The returned copies of these two questionnaires form the source of data for the dissertation. The dissertation is organized into five chapters. The first chapter gives the background and significance, statement of the problem, the purposes and delimitations of the study, and a definition of terms. Chapter II is a review of the literature. Chapter III describes the collection of data. Construction, validation, administration, and analysis of the questionnaire are considered. The findings of the study are presented in Chapter IV. After an introduction, the occurrence of ILS programs and the reasons for trying or not trying an ILS approach are tabulated. The nature of the ILS programs which have been tried and the problems and changes that have occurred in the various programs are presented. The last part of Chapter IV is devoted to the perceived advantages and disadvantages of the ILS approach. Chapter V presents a summary of the findings. Conclusions are drawn and recommendations are made on the basis of the findings.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Science, Unjversity of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Science. March 1995 / This thesis reports on school teaching and learning problems in the area of chemical re&ctivity and on an attempt to overcome some of these problems with an in-service course for teachers. rhase 1 of this research was a study of the conceptions of aspects of reactivity, rates of reaction and chemical equilibrium held by secondary school students. The nature and origin of the conceptual di:Eficltlties, i.n the above areas were investigated. The concepts of ret,ctivity and reactivity se.rd.e s are formally introduced at a standard 8 level. These concepts form a springboard for the understanding of more formal quantitative worl< done i.n rates of reaction and chemical equilibrium at a standard 10 level. Two multiple-choice questionnaires, a reactivity qUestionnaire and a i'a'Ceand (.,quilibrium qUestionnaire, were designed to probe for the nature and ori9i.n of views held )y st<mdard 8 & 10 students respectively. The views of both the standard 8 & 10 students on aspects of react~vity and reactivity series Were investigated using the reactivity ql.ltlstionnaire.The views of a sample of 'Jtandard 8 students were also probed during interview sessions conducted at selected schools. standard 10 students views about concepts related to aspects of rates of reaction and chemical equilibrium, were also investigated

Este estudo tem por objetivo identificar como o termo \"química\" se apresenta nas concepções de um grupo de licenciandos em Química de diversas universidades públicas brasileiras. Para isso, foi utilizado como suporte teórico a Teoria das Representações Sociais. Os dados foram obtidos a partir de questionário aplicado a 148 estudantes de cinco universidades brasileiras, com faixa etária entre 17 e 36 anos. Este questionário apresenta questões que utilizam-se da técnica de evocação livre de palavras e questões dissertativas. Para a análise do material coletado, utilizou-se da técnica de análise de conteúdo, de Bardin, da análise estrutural das representações sociais, proposta por Abric, e da análise de similitude, proposta por Flament. Com o auxílio da análise de conteúdo, as informações obtidas a partir das questões de evocação livre de palavras permitiram identificar e compreender as relações estabelecidas por estes licenciandos para o termo \"química\", permitindo que se explicitassem os vários possíveis sentidos dessa palavra. Além disso, a utilização da análise de similitude possibilitou o refinamento dos termos constituintes da representação social do grupo pesquisado, tornando o núcleo central mais preciso. Os resultados indicam uma representação pautada no conhecimento formal ingênuo, apontando uma compreensão superficial, genérica e, muitas vezes, equivocada de elementos conceituais da escolarização formal. Os termos constituintes da representação social mostram que essa visão superficial da Química está fortemente enraizada entre o grupo pesquisado e que, a curto prazo, não tende a mudar, visto que alterações na estrutura central da representação social são difíceis de ocorrer. O conjunto de informações obtidas permite supor que a representação encontrada seja sistematicamente alimentada por professores, métodos de ensino, currículos e materiais didáticos utilizados ao longo da escolarização desses indivíduos. Nesse sentido, estudos como este possuem papel importante no processo de formação (inicial e continuada) de professores, no sentido de identificar lacunas conceituais entre professores e licenciandos, alertar os formadores de professores da existência dessas lacunas na formação conceitual dos licenciandos, além de trazer informações que possam auxiliar no desenvolvimento de estratégias de intervenção para superar tais lacunas. / The present work reports how the term \"chemistry\" is present in the views of a group of undergraduates of chemistry teacher training courses of several Brazilian public universities. Serge Moscovici´s Theory of Social Representations is the theoretical guideline that underlies this study. Information was gathered through a questionnaire applied to 148 students, aged between 17 and 36 years, using the technique of free word association and essay questions. For the analysis of the collected material, we used the technique of content analysis, of Bardin, the structural analysis of social representations, proposed by Abric, and the similarity analysis, proposed by Flament. The information obtained from the free word association was treated with the content analysis technique. This allows to explicit the various possible meanings of that term. In addition, the use of similitude analysis enabled the refinement of the constituent terms of social representation, making the central core most accurate. The results indicate a representation guided in the naive formal knowledge, pointing a superficial, generic and often misguided conceptual understanding of formal schooling elements. The constitution of the social representation shows that this superficial view of chemistry is entrenched between the study group members\' views. This representation is not likely to change in the short term, since changes in the central structure of social representation are hard to occur. The set of information suggests that teachers, teaching methods, curriculum and materials used during the schooling process may systematically feed the representation found. In this way, studies like this play an important role in the teacher training process (initial and continuing) in order to identify conceptual gaps between teachers and undergraduates, alert the teacher trainers of the existence of these gaps in the conceptual training of undergraduates, and bring information that can assist in the development of intervention strategies to overcome these gaps.

Most recently, there has been a noticeable rise in the push for use of technology in the classroom. The advancement in digital science has increased greatly the capacity to explore animations, models, and interesting apps. that should substantially enhance science cognition. At the same time, there is a great need to increase collaboration in the science classroom. There is a concern that the collaborative experience will be lost with the use of technology in the classroom. This study seeks to explore the use of iPads in conjunction with a constructivist learning approach to promote student collaboration. The participants in this study included two sections of 11th grade AP Chemistry students. Data was generated from different sources such as teacher observations of classroom interactions patterned after Gilles (2004). In order to gauge student perception of working in groups with the use of the iPad, survey questions adapted from Knezek, Mills and Wakefield (2012) and group interviews were used (Galleta, 2013). Learning outcomes were assessed using methods adapted from a study by Lord and Baviskar (2007). Findings of this study showed high percentages of evidence for increased community, productive student group communication, effective feedback through use of the iPads, and value of the interactive apps., but it also showed that students still preferred face-to-face interactions over virtual interactions for certain learning situations. The study showed good content learning outcomes, as well as favorable opinions among the students for the effectiveness of the use of iPads in collaborative settings in the classroom.