Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is vital to synthesis and provides rich problem-solving opportunities for organic chemistry students. However, little is known about 1H NMR spectroscopy instruction or how students use spectral features in solving. The goal of this dissertation research was to examine how students learn about and solve 1H NMR spectroscopy problems. Organic chemistry textbooks were analyzed for the ways in which spectral features were introduced and incorporated into worked examples and practice problems. Spectral features like the number of signals and chemical shift were covered by problems more frequently, while integration was covered least. Think-aloud interviews were completed to identify the operators students utilized in their problem-solving processes, and extra credit problem sets were designed and administered to students at three different universities to examine whether students could correctly perform each individual type of operator. While students could perform operators, it was unclear if students knew how and when to use the operators. To fill this knowledge gap, multiple choice assessment questions were developed and administered to students at three different large universities. Coding schemes were developed to identify and describe students’ use of task features and inferences, and regression analyses were completed to discern which areas of reasoning led to success in solving. A majority of students did not identify using any critical spectral features in written explanations. Regression analyses revealed that the inferences students made, and not the task features they paid attention to, were most significantly associated with success in structural predictions; a majority of students made solely correct inferences in their reasoning explanations. When a mixture of correct and incorrect inferences were made, a majority of those students were unable to answer the questions correctly. These findings suggest that students may know enough to solve simple 1H NMR spectroscopy problems, but may lack knowledge about specific spectral features which could impact overall solving success. Students may require considerable support in deciphering the critical features in 1H NMR spectroscopy problems and developing robust, correct inferences across all spectral features.

The thesis focuses on innovation of chemistry education in topic of Plastics and their environmental consequences in primary schools. The content of theoretical part deals with plastics around us, their history, different types and possibilities of recycling. This thesis also contains analysis of valid curricular documents and textbooks which are frequently used in classes of chemistry in primary schools. Practical part deals with proposal of set of activities with project elements including experimental activities that were executed as a part of project day. Evaluation of prepared educational activities was completed using the mind maps created by students while observing the change in number of used terms and relevance in relation to assigned topic. The results of thesis which are collected and documented confirms our assumptions focused on efficiency of project days in primary schools and shows a way how teacher's project could be transformed into activities of individual students by assigning educational tasks. KEYWORDS lower secondary chemistry education, plastics, environmental education, school project day, student's miniproject

Mental models for scientific learning are often defined as, "cognitive tools situated between experiments and theories" (Duschl & Grandy, 2012). In learning, these cognitive tools are used to not only take in new information, but to help problem solve in new contexts. Nancy Nersessian (2008) describes a mental model as being [loosely] characterized as a representation of a system with interactive parts with representations of those interactions. Models can be qualitative, quantitative, and/or simulative (mental, physical, computational)" (p. 63). If conceptual parts used by the students in science education are inaccurate, then the resulting model will not be useful. Students in college general chemistry courses are presented with multiple abstract topics and often struggle to fit these parts into complete models. This is especially true for topics that are founded on quantum concepts, such as atomic structure and molecular bonding taught in college general chemistry. The objectives of this study were focused on how students use visual tools introduced during instruction to reason with atomic and molecular structure, what misconceptions may be associated with these visual tools, and how visual modeling skills may be taught to support students' use of visual tools for reasoning. The research questions for this study follow from Gilbert's (2008) theory that experts use multiple representations when reasoning and modeling a system, and Kozma and Russell's (2005) theory of representational competence levels. This study finds that as students developed greater command of their understanding of abstract quantum concepts, they spontaneously provided additional representations to describe their more sophisticated models of atomic and molecular structure during interviews. This suggests that when visual modeling with multiple representations is taught, along with the limitations of the representations, it can assist students in the development of models for reasoning about abstract topics such as atomic and molecular structure. There is further gain if students’ difficulties with these representations are targeted through the use additional instruction such as a workbook that requires the students to exercise their visual modeling skills.

Many of the experiments available for working with probeware are aimed at the grammar school level. However, with the proliferation of more sophisticated sensors, there is an opportunity to develop experiments for chemistry-oriented vocational schools (specialization Applied Chemistry). These experiments would benefit from the advantages of the vocational school - more time available in the laboratory, better instrumentation, and a wider range of learning topics allowing for more challenging experiments. However, these would also work as advanced experiments for grammar school level chemistry education. The theoretical part discusses probeware, its use for teaching chemistry, the range of different available sensors and their advantages and disadvantages, as well as sources of available experiments, their categorization and comparison with the Framework Education Programme education topics. This thesis introduces a set of 5 different, fully developed and laboratory-validated experiments selected in accordance with the requirements of the Framework Education Programme and School Education Programme for chemistry-oriented vocational schools. In addition to the write-up of the process of their design and validation in this thesis, the annex provides developed materials for direct use in school labs,...

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<p>  </p> <p>Over the years it has become more common for practitioners to use the NGSS scientific practices to inform curricula at the undergraduate level. One of these practices is argumentation, the process of engaging in argument from evidence. Argumentation is an important part of the scientific process because scientists must make claims about their research and then provide justification using evidence to support those claims. While being able to argue your claim based on evidence is a common occurrence for scientists, it is rarely something students engage with in general level courses. In order to incorporate argumentation in the classroom the Claim, Evidence, Reasoning (CER) framework was adopted to develop the argumentation materials. </p> <p>In this study, aspects of the CER framework have been adapted and incorporated into the existing curriculum of a second-semester general chemistry non-majors course. The changes include lecture discussions, worksheets, and exam questions to help scaffold and facilitate students’ argumentation development. In the spring 2020 and 2021 semesters, 80 students in each course were tracked through their CER assessments to gain insight into how students construct arguments. The arguments were analyzed based on completeness, correctness, and complexity. The results show support for the effectiveness of the curriculum intervention and were used to make recommendations for instructors using the CER framework and identify future areas of research.</p>

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