International Perspectives on Chemistry Education, Research, and Practice 9780841233430, 0841233438, 9780841233461

Table of contents :
Content: Preface1. The Division of Chemical Education's International Activities Committee: Insights from Chairs - Past and Present2. Chemical Education Research as an Emergent Scholarly Field in Costa Rica3. Discovering Laboratory Safety Misconceptions in Secondary Students To Promote Science Conceptual Understanding4. Student-Curated Exhibitions: Alternative Assessment in Chemistry Education in Israel5. Metacognitive Foundations in Higher Education Chemistry6. The Development of a New Curriculum for Chemistry Education in The Netherlands7. Challenges, Barriers, and Achievements in Chemistry Education: The Case of Greece8. Visualizations in High School Chemistry Textbooks Used in Turkey9. Teaching Chemistry with Analogies around the World: Views of Teachers from Four Countries10. Developing Modeling Competencies Using Argument-Based Modeling in General Chemistry Experiment Course in Korea11. Australian Chemistry Education Research and Practice: A Dynamic andColourful Landscape of Learning and Teaching12. Designing a New Safety Training Program13. Chemical Education in Slovenia: Past Experiences and Future Challenges14. Transforming Chemistry Class with Technology-Enhanced Active Inquiry Learning for the Digital Native Generation15. Organizing International CollaborationsEditors' BiographiesAuthor IndexSubject Index

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International Perspectives on Chemistry Education Research and Practice

ACS SYMPOSIUM SERIES 1293

International Perspectives on Chemistry Education Research and Practice Charlie Cox, Editor Stanford University Stanford, California

Wendy E. Schatzberg, Editor Dixie State University Saint George, Utah

Sponsored by the ACS Division of Chemical Education

American Chemical Society, Washington, DC Distributed in print by Oxford University Press

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Cox, Charlie (Charles Terrence), editor. | Schatzberg, Wendy E., editor. | American Chemical Society. Division of Chemical Education. Title: International perspectives on chemistry education, research, and practice / Charlie Cox, editor (Stanford University, Stanford, California), Wendy E. Schatzberg, editor (Dixie State University, Saint George, Utah) ; sponsored by the ACS Division of Chemical Education. Description: Washington, DC : American Chemical Society, [2018] | Series: ACS symposium series ; 1293 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018024299 (print) | LCCN 2018031854 (ebook) | ISBN 9780841233430 | ISBN 9780841233461 Subjects: LCSH: Chemistry--Study and teaching. | Chemistry--Research. | Education--International cooperation. Classification: LCC QD40 (ebook) | LCC QD40 .I5625 2018 (print) | DDC 540.71--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018024299

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48n1984. Copyright © 2018 American Chemical Society Distributed in print by Oxford University Press All Rights Reserved. Reprographic copying beyond that permitted by Sections 107 or 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act is allowed for internal use only, provided that a per-chapter fee of $40.25 plus $0.75 per page is paid to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Republication or reproduction for sale of pages in this book is permitted only under license from ACS. Direct these and other permission requests to ACS Copyright Office, Publications Division, 1155 16th Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20036. The citation of trade names and/or names of manufacturers in this publication is not to be construed as an endorsement or as approval by ACS of the commercial products or services referenced herein; nor should the mere reference herein to any drawing, specification, chemical process, or other data be regarded as a license or as a conveyance of any right or permission to the holder, reader, or any other person or corporation, to manufacture, reproduce, use, or sell any patented invention or copyrighted work that may in any way be related thereto. Registered names, trademarks, etc., used in this publication, even without specific indication thereof, are not to be considered unprotected by law. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Foreword The ACS Symposium Series was first published in 1974 to provide a mechanism for publishing symposia quickly in book form. The purpose of the series is to publish timely, comprehensive books developed from the ACS sponsored symposia based on current scientific research. Occasionally, books are developed from symposia sponsored by other organizations when the topic is of keen interest to the chemistry audience. Before agreeing to publish a book, the proposed table of contents is reviewed for appropriate and comprehensive coverage and for interest to the audience. Some papers may be excluded to better focus the book; others may be added to provide comprehensiveness. When appropriate, overview or introductory chapters are added. Drafts of chapters are peer-reviewed prior to final acceptance or rejection, and manuscripts are prepared in camera-ready format. As a rule, only original research papers and original review papers are included in the volumes. Verbatim reproductions of previous published papers are not accepted.

ACS Books Department

Contents Preface .............................................................................................................................. ix 1.

The Division of Chemical Education’s International Activities Committee: Insights from Chairs – Past and Present ................................................................ 1 Resa M. Kelly

2.

Chemical Education Research as an Emergent Scholarly Field in Costa Rica ............................................................................................................................ 9 S. Sandi-Urena, R. M. Romero, and J. Leitón Chacón

3.

Discovering Laboratory Safety Misconceptions in Secondary Students To Promote Science Conceptual Understanding ...................................................... 27 W. E. Schatzberg

4.

Student-Curated Exhibitions: Alternative Assessment in Chemistry Education in Israel ................................................................................................. 39 Ron Blonder

5.

Metacognitive Foundations in Higher Education Chemistry ............................ 57 F. Arslantas, E. Wood, and S. MacNeil

6.

The Development of a New Curriculum for Chemistry Education in The Netherlands ............................................................................................................. 79 J. H. Apotheker

7.

Challenges, Barriers, and Achievements in Chemistry Education: The Case of Greece ................................................................................................................. 93 Georgios Tsaparlis

8.

Visualizations in High School Chemistry Textbooks Used in Turkey .............. 111 Sevil Akaygun

9.

Teaching Chemistry with Analogies around the World: Views of Teachers from Four Countries ............................................................................................ 129 S. Akaygun, C. Brown, F. O. Karatas, S. Supasorn, and Z. Yaseen

10. Developing Modeling Competencies Using Argument-Based Modeling in General Chemistry Experiment Course in Korea ............................................ 147 Jeonghee Nam and Hyesook Cho

vii

11. Australian Chemistry Education Research and Practice: A Dynamic and Colourful Landscape of Learning and Teaching ............................................... 175 Gwendolyn A. Lawrie and Daniel C. Southam 12. Designing a New Safety Training Program ....................................................... 193 Charles T. Cox , Jr. 13. Chemical Education in Slovenia: Past Experiences and Future Challenges ............................................................................................................. 205 I. Devetak and V. Ferk Savec 14. Transforming Chemistry Class with Technology-Enhanced Active Inquiry Learning for the Digital Native Generation ...................................................... 221 Niwat Srisawasdi 15. Organizing International Collaborations .......................................................... 235 Charles H. Atwood Editors’ Biographies .................................................................................................... 243

Indexes Author Index ................................................................................................................ 247 Subject Index ................................................................................................................ 249

viii

Preface Strategies for improving teaching and student success in secondary and post-secondary chemistry classrooms is widely researched nationally and internationally. The development of high quality instruction is key to retaining students in STEM fields, as well as, developing standards for deeper learning and application of course content. The latter is particularly important given the central nature of chemistry to STEM fields which is reflected by the number of majors that require a minimal exposure to chemistry theory and practice. The idea of gathering international perspectives emerged from our participation in the ACS Chemical Education international committee and from hosting ACS symposia focusing upon international relations and research. To broaden perspectives of chemical education through an international lens, researchers in Australia, Turkey, Romania, Costa Rica, Singapore, the Netherlands, Greece, Slovenia, and Canada contributed chapters with a focus upon topics ranging from assessment, safety, pedagogy, metacognition, to outreach. In addition to symposium presenters, other contributors were invited based upon their knowledge of chemical education theory and practice. Our goals were to include ideas and techniques to incorporate within the classroom or laboratory, in addition to the frameworks for research . In addition to providing international perspectives on teaching and research, our goal is to foster potential international communication, collaboration, and research.

Charlie Cox Lecturer of Chemistry Stanford University 376 Lomita Drive Stanford, California 94305, United States

Wendy E. Schatzberg Assistant Professor Dixie State University 225 South University Drive Saint George, Utah 84770, United States

ix

Chapter 1

The Division of Chemical Education’s International Activities Committee: Insights from Chairs – Past and Present Resa M. Kelly* Department of Chemistry, San José State University, San José, California 95192, United States *E-mail: [email protected].

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the Division of Chemical Education’s International Activities Committee (DivCHED IAC) and how it differs from the ACS IAC. It includes perspectives of past DivCHED IAC chairs and the present chair, who offer insights into what they believe were the committee’s greatest accomplishments.

ACS IAC International relations are highly valued and at the foundation of many ACS initiatives as the organization looks to enhance connectedness on matters associated with chemistry in a global society. The American Chemical Society (ACS) recognized the importance of international relations through its constitution stating in Article II, Section 3, “the SOCIETY shall cooperate with scientists internationally and shall be concerned with the worldwide application of chemistry to the needs of humanity (1).” As a result, the Committee on International Activities (ACS IAC), formed in 1962, for the purpose of studying and recommending appropriate SOCIETY participation and cooperation in international undertakings pertaining to chemical education, professional activities, and scientific matters of interest to chemists and chemical engineers, and coordinating its efforts with those of other organizations (1). Its primary mission is to assist scientists and engineers worldwide to communicate and collaborate for the good of the chemical and chemically related sciences, chemical engineering, and their practitioners (1). To balance the many global partnerships that network chemists and engineers together, the ACS IAC is divided into © 2018 American Chemical Society

subcommittees representing Africa and the Americas, Europe and the Middle East, and Asia and the Pacific Basin (1). Each subcommittee is responsible for their geographical area and considers ways to facilitate the development of chemistry: research and interactions, and chemistry education in these areas. The subcommittees promote and publicize programs of the ACS and identify and advertise opportunities available to younger chemists (1). In 2017, ACS President Elect, Peter Dorhout challenged the IAC to think about what the ACS will look like in ten years in terms of its global presence and member service. He asked that ACS Local Sections, Divisions, Committees and Chapters coordinate development, structure, delivery and evaluation of their global priorities and interests. He called for the ACS IAC to review ACS membership structures, policies, and activities, engage member global scientific networks and relationships, and to also consider how to engage youth development communities worldwide (1). In addition, the IAC was asked to find ways to disseminate the contributions and successes of its flagship offerings to reach more people.

DivCHED IAC The international activities committee of the Division of Chemical Education was formed two decades after the ACS IAC, specifically to engage and connect the Division with other networks of chemistry educators with global interests. Through these networks, the DivCHED IAC members exchange ideas about chemistry education research and practices that promote equity and diversity in chemistry education. According to the Fall 1982 newsletter of the Division of Chemical Education, the Executive Committee approved the formation of a task force on international activities that was charged with examining “the whole range of international chemical education activities” and to provide recommendations to the Executive Committee for identifying the mission of such a committee (2). The International Chemical Education Activities Committee occurred April 7th, 1984, when a task force was transmuted into a standing committee during an Executive Committee Meeting held at a spring meeting in St. Louis, Missouri (3). The first chair of the committee was Robert C. Brasted. Since Brasted there have been ten chairs of the DivCHED IAC. Brasted passed away in 1988 and to honor his long-time support of activities in international education, particularly those involving developing countries, a first of its kind, travel award was provided to allow a non U.S. chemical education specialist to speak at the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education (BCCE) (4). The award presented and awarded by the DivCHED IAC, consisted of: Economy class air fare from the recipient’s home city to the location of the BCCE, living expenses, a one year membership in DivCHED and a one-year subscription to the Journal of Chemical Education (5). In 1988, the first Robert C. Brasted Memorial Lecture was given by award winner David Waddington of the United Kingdom, who delivered a talk on international cooperation in the development of instruments and curricula for use in developing countries (4, 5). The Brasted Memorial Lectures were administered by the DivCHED IAC, and went on for 2

several years culminating in 1996. The awardees were: 1988 David Waddington of England; 1990 Aleksandra Kornhauser of Slovenia; 1992 Ernesto Giesbrecht of Brazil; 1994 Krishna Sane of India and the last awardee was Alex Johnstone of Scotland. Several former DivCHED IAC chairs were contacted to learn about the committee’s greatest DivCHED achievements while they served as chair of the committee. This group consists of Loretta Jones (chair: 1989-1991), Zafra Lerman (chair: 1992-1994, 1998-2003), Ram Lerman (chair: 1995-1997), Lucy Eubanks (chair: 2007-2009), Carmen Valdez Gauthier (chair: 2010-2014) and Charles Atwood (chair: 2015-2016). Loretta Jones was a member of DivCHED IAC from 1988 to 2002 and served as chair from 1989 to 1991. During the time that Jones served on the committee, the committee sought international travel funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF). For the 1985 International Conference on Chemical Education (ICCE) sponsored by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), NSF provided funds for precollege teachers to attend the meeting, but the IAC felt that college level instructors should also be able to apply for funding. The IAC secured Division funds to offer small grants to a few instructors. Jones received one of those grants and thus when she became chair, she was motivated to pursue additional travel grants. For the 1992 ICCE held in Thailand, she and Sylvia Ware wrote a new proposal to NSF to secure grants for all levels of instruction. The proposal was awarded, and they solicited applications, assembled a panel of reviewers from all instructional levels and used the $36,000 award to fund several faculty members from elementary through college levels to travel to Thailand. The award recipients gave presentations at the conference on what they learned at an ACS national or regional meeting. Zafra Lerman chaired DivCHED IAC from 1992 to 1994 and again from 1998 to 2003, while Ram Lamba chaired the committee from 1995 through 1997. Lerman was a member from 1989 to 2013 and appears to be the longest serving member and chair of DivCHED IAC. She recalled that a noteworthy accomplishment during that time was the committee’s work toward advancing relationships with the Cuban Chemical Society. In 1998, with the help of Senator Dick Durbin from Illinois, members of the DivCHED IAC received a license to go to Cuba to attend the third Cuban Chemical Congress. The group delivered lectures and interacted with Cuban chemists and chemical educators. Past President of ACS, Paul Walter, and the head of the Office of International Activities, John Malin, were on the trip and so was Priestly Medal winner, former ACS President and University of Havana alum, Ernest Eliel. In 2001, again with the help of Senator Durbin, the DivCHED IAC got a license to attend the fourth Cuban Chemical Congress and members of DivCHED participated in the chemical education symposia. In 2002, the Cuban Chemical Society had a special chemical education congress in Santiago de Cuba and again DivCHED IAC organized for a large group of more than 20 DivCHED members to attend this special chemical education meeting. Many of the members visited schools and interacted with the community. They were also invited to attend a ceremony honoring Ernest Eliel at the University of Havana. 3

In 2004, at the ACS National meeting in Orlando, Florida, the IAC joined forces with the ACS IAC. Together they organized a symposium on US-Cuban relations. The ACS IAC supported the travel of two chemists from Cuba and Senator Durbin helped Cuban chemists secure visas. Again, in 2004, the IAC organized another big delegation to the fifth Cuban Chemical Society Congress. The Cubans appreciated its growing relationship with the DivCHED IAC and in a ceremony, they made Ernest Eliel and Zafra Lerman honorary members of the Cuban Chemical Society. In 2006, thirty members of the ACS were on the delegation for the sixth International Cuban Chemical Congress. Ann Nalley, who was the President of the Society that year, also joined the delegation. The IAC’s relationship with Cuba was recognized and applauded by AAAS and members of congress. Under the leadership of Lerman and Lamba, the IAC organized international symposia and workshops at a number of conferences: the PacifiChem Conference in 1995, 2000, and 2005, the ICCE conferences in York, England (1991), Bangkok, Thailand (19992), Brisbane, Australia (1996), Cairo, Egypt (1998), and Budapest, Hungary (2000). In 2002, Lerman delivered a plenary lecture at the ICCE in Beijing, China. Under Lamba’s leadership the committee supported the travel of US chemistry teachers to the ICCE in Brisbane, Australia. In 1994, Lamba was the organizer of the ICCE conference in Puerto Rico and DivCHED and IAC played a role in planning the conference. This was the first time (and only time so far) that a member of the IAC committee has organized such a large and successful ICCE. Sylvia Ware and Lerman received NSF funding to support the travel of fifty US teachers to attend the ICCE. From 1993 to 1995, Lerman and Lamba worked with Joe Lagowski to write a proposal to IUPAC for a CHEMical Research Applied to World Needs (CHEMRAWN) conference on chemistry education, which was approved. CHEMRAWN conferences are designed to identify and focus attention on world needs and to recommend to the global scientific community actions to be taken (7). CHEMRAWN X: The Globalization of Chemical Education: Preparing Chemical Scientists and Engineers for Transnational Industries was planned for Budapest, August 2000, but then it was postponed when CHEMRAWN XII was moved to 2000 (6). The conference was being considered for 2002, but instead a series of mini-CHEMRAWNs with full day sessions of “Chemical Education to Meet World Needs” were held at three different conferences in 2000: ICCE (Budapest), ACS (Washington, DC), and Pacifichem (2000). The mini-conferences were deemed a success, and to date, CHEMRAWN X has not yet been held (7). In 1999, the ACS IAC began to work more closely with DivCHED IAC and thus decided to eliminate its subcommittee on chemical education. Lucy Eubanks was a member of DivCHED IAC from 1985-2006 and chaired the committee from 2007-2009. At this time, the committee was thinking seriously about term limits in hopes of enticing new members to the committee; however, they also recognized that the length, breadth and range of international experiences was important to the committee make-up and wrestled with how best to bring about changes that would be inclusive to new members. One of the most significant accomplishments of the committee during Eubank’s tenure, was the establishment of travel grants for DivCHED ACS members to travel 4

and participate at international meetings. The committee set the criteria and responsibilities associated with this award, and the award was approved by the Executive Committee. The first award was made in 2008 and was awarded to Tyson A. Miller, and the award is still given out and most recently was awarded to Jack Barbera in 2018. Another notable accomplishment was developing stronger relations between the DivCHED IAC and the ACS IAC. Carmen Valdez Gauthier was a member of DivCHED IAC from 2000 to 2014 and served as chair from 2010 to 2014. She recalls that one of the committee’s noteworthy achievements occurred at the 2007 ACS National meeting in San Diego, where she organized a symposium on International Collaborations between the United States and Mexico. This symposium was the seed for subsequent IAC symposia. Valdez Gauthier participated as a DivCHED member on the trips to Cuba, organized by Lerman, noting that she attended the Santiago de Cuba meeting and the meeting where Ernest Eliel was honored. Both of these events were significant in establishing long lasting friendships between the DivCHED IAC and Cuban colleagues. The committee continued to promote the IAC-Travel Award and established a committee to review the IAC-Travel applications. The development of national and international symposia featuring global relations was another important DivCHED IAC accomplishment. Charles “Butch” Atwood was a member of DivCHED IAC from 2008 to 2016, chaired the committee in 2015 and co-chaired with Resa Kelly in 2016. According to Atwood, the IAC improved relations with the ACS IAC and paved the way for the DivCHED IAC chair to serve as a committee associate of the ACS IAC in 2017. The team of Atwood and Kelly and Joel Harris of the Analytical Division secured an Innovative Project Grant and a Global Innovations Grant in 2016, and with these funds organized a workshop for Cuban chemists in Salt Lake City, Utah. The committee maintained, and enhanced Latin American relations. Specifically, the committee fostered collaborations with chemists and chemical educators in Brazil and Peru. Atwood attended and presented at the Brazilian Chemical Society (SBQ) conference in Goiânia, Brazil, the Federation of Latin America de Quimica (FLAQ) in Peru and the IUPAC meeting in São Paulo, Brazil. He made three visits to Cuba to further relations and enhance Cuban-US relations in chemistry education. In addition, DivCHED IAC worked to expand the DivCHED IAC travel award opening it to a broader group of DivCHED members. I, Resa Kelly, am in my third year serving as chair of the DivCHED IAC, having been a member since 2012. The committee’s work, thus far has been to define the vision and goals of the committee, create electronic platforms for connecting to foreign chemists and chemistry educators, create unique symposium experiences that foster deeper collaborations to other international organizations, and to enhance the participation of all DivCHED IAC members on projects and activities. I continue to serve as a committee associate on the ACS IAC to represent DivCHED’s voice and to find ways that the DivCHED IAC can work with the ACS IAC to foster chemistry education initiatives. In an effort to bridge to other international focused entities within ACS, the Director of International Activities, External Affairs and Communications of ACS, Brad Miller, is invited to attend DivCHED IAC meetings, along with a member of the IUPAC (Marcy Towns). Miller communicates the work of this branch of ACS and informs our committee 5

of their latest work and endeavors and helps us navigate hurdles and develop our global relations. IUPAC representative Towns relays IUPAC events and updates the committee on their projects and conferences. The vision and goals of DivCHED IAC were constructed and accepted in the spring of 2017. Our newly defined vision is: As the International Activities Committee of the Division of Chemical Education, our aim is to engage and connect with other networks of chemistry educators with global interests. Through these networks, we will exchange ideas about chemistry education research and practices that promote equity and diversity in chemistry education. To accomplish these goals, we will: •

• •

•

Host symposia and events both in and out of the United States, wherein the co-organizers will consist of one veteran DivCHED IAC member, one new DivCHED IAC member and one international ACS DivCHED member. Disseminate information pertaining to international events through our DivCHED website and social media. Support global research interests by offering a yearly travel award in the amount of $2000 to support an ACS DivCHED member to attend international meetings. Promote and arrange collaborations.

With this goal in mind, we have been highly focused on creating symposia events that will attract international presenters, as well as local presenters. While serving as a member of the IAC, I received an Innovative Project Grant (2014) with Peter Mahaffy, a member of the Canadian Society of Chemistry to develop a traveling symposium between conferences in Canada and the U.S. with the hope that dual symposia might enhance relations between chemistry education enthusiasts from the participating societies. It was also hoped that these symposia might become a model for uniting the U.S. with other international chemistry organizations. Unfortunately, this model proved to be difficult to sustain and costly due to the travel funds and conference fees. Thus, IAC members began to reconceptualize the multicultural to focus on specific topics in chemistry education research and practice. We have also examined plans to involve more DivCHED IAC members in the running and organization of the symposia laying out a structure that consists of two organizers, one seasoned to organizing events, a veteran, and one new to the process, all members of DivCHED IAC. In order to extend our reach to people who want to develop global collaborations and partnerships connected to chemistry education research and practice, an online survey was created to better learn the specific needs of these applicants. The survey is housed on the DivCHED IAC’s webpage (http://www.divched.org/committee/international-activities), which has been remodeled to showcase our work and the work of other DivCHED members. Our hope is to help disseminate information about the exciting ways that all Division members are progressing on global projects. To further enhance our 6

communication, a Facebook group was created that has over 70 members, and I have begun to use Twitter to tweet about international conferences and events, including the travel award winner (@kellygirl7391). One of the biggest barriers to developing international collaborations is the cost associated with traveling to international venues and events. DivCHED IAC has continued to offer the travel award, first created under Eubank’s tenure and modified and strengthened by Valdez Gauthier and Atwood, and we have also secured travel money to assist non-U.S. researchers to attend ACS National meetings through a new endowment from DivCHED IAC member Conrad Bergo. If you, or someone you know, is interested in contributing to the DivCHED IAC, begin by contacting DivCHED’s executive assistant, Heather Johnson ([email protected]) and the DivCHED IAC chair (currently, Kelly; [email protected]). We continue to promote collaborations with Cuba and will be featuring a joint symposium on US-Cuban Relations at the ACS National Meeting in New Orleans in spring of 2018. Unfortunately, due to recent political turmoil affecting the withdrawal of diplomats from the American Embassy in Havana, Cuban chemists can no longer obtain visas to travel to the US. Thus, we are trying to find electronic ways to have them present, such as through video-recorded presentations and question and answer sessions via social media. The IAC is also trying to foster our connections to Latin America through offering a joint symposium at the Congreson Ibero Americano de Química in Lima, Peru in the fall of 2018. A challenge of historical significance to DivCHED IAC and to many DivCHED standing committees is the equitable dissemination of tasks and roles to involve all members. With the inception of term limits in 2014, committee members may serve, at most, three consecutive, three-year terms. Invoking these term limits has allowed for greater diversity in membership and has empowered new members to make exciting contributions. This ACS book, co-edited by DivCHED IAC members, Charlie Cox and Wendy Schatzberg, is one example of new members actively pursuing projects of interest. However, it is important to recognize that DivCHED IAC continues to work to involve all of its members on projects of interest. Barriers to involvement that are consistently reported are that many members hold positions that are demanding of time and provide limited travel support. As we progress, we will continue to explore online venues for having meetings and discussions and promote flexible involvement of our members. In conclusion, the future of the DivCHED IAC appears bright. Its role in promoting international relations in chemistry education is strong and will only get stronger as we continue to deepen cultural understanding and foster global relations in the pursuit of mutual educational interests. We have much to learn from each other as we continue this journey. Onward we go.

7

References 1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7.

Committee on International Activities, American Chemical Society. www.acs.org/content/acs/en/about/governance/committees/ international.html. CHED Newsletter, Fall 1982; Division of Chemical Education, Inc., American Chemical Society. CHED Newsletter, Fall 1984; Division of Chemical Education, Inc., American Chemical Society. BCCE Organizing Committee. J. Chem. Educ. 1989, 66 (2), 94–106. DivCHED IAC. J. Chem. Educ. 1995, 72 (6), 491. Malin, J. M. History and Effectiveness of CHEMRAWN Conferences, 1978−2006. http://old.iupac.org/standing/chemrawn/CR_Histrory_ 061027.pdf. CHEMRAWN Committee, International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (1997−2008). http://old.iupac.org/standing/chemrawn.html.

8

Chapter 2

Chemical Education Research as an Emergent Scholarly Field in Costa Rica S. Sandi-Urena,*,1 R. M. Romero,1,2 and J. Leitón Chacón1 1School

of Chemistry and University of Costa Rica, San Pedro, Montes de Oca, 2060, San Jose, Costa Rica 2Centro de Investigaciones en Productos Naturales (CIPRONA), University of Costa Rica, San Pedro, Montes de Oca, 2060, San Jose, Costa Rica *E-mail: [email protected].

Chemistry education and chemical education research are not exempt of the processes of globalization, its potentialities and the obstacles it may bring about. Thus, chemistry educators must rethink chemical education research and practice from this globalized perspective. Effective communication amongst members of the international community is critical in this process and an enhanced understanding of others’ contexts (e.g. history, resources, limitations, worldviews) is indispensable to achieve it. This chapter focuses on the development of chemical education and chemical education research, CER, in Costa Rica. It provides a historical perspective and information on the current state of the matter that afford readers the possibility to contrast with their own experiences. This chapter intends to introduce provocative thoughts to nurture international reflection and conversation and to assist readers in broadening their perspectives on chemical education.

© 2018 American Chemical Society

Introduction That chemistry is a universal language and that chemists can communicate even when they do not share a spoken language has become a commonplace of international reference (1). However, chemistry is more than chemical structures and formulas and effective communication amongst chemists and chemistry educators from around the world requires more than a highly sophisticated, technical, global code. Furthermore, even a common spoken language is far from guaranteeing effective communication when cultural and idiosyncratic traits are unknown or ignored. Mutual understanding amongst human groups of any kind is bettered when we recognize our differences are as relevant as our similarities. As scientists and educators we have more to communicate than just plain chemistry. The presumption the practice of chemistry and its teaching and learning are somehow disconnected from the context in which they are embedded is deeply erroneous. Efforts to bring together international peers through underscoring of commonalities have, understandably, dominated international chemical education discourse; nonetheless, they risk overshadowing the uniqueness of the practices of chemistry and chemical education. After all, it continues to be those most influential global partners who shape and characterize priorities and common trends in the global landscape. As relevant and current as it is, globalization challenges us to avoid misunderstanding it for normalization. Otherwise, the realities (interests, obstacles, priorities, etc.) of less influential partners in the global discussion may fall through the cracks into invisibility. Parchmann (2) proposed the analogy of a tacit confrontation between “Davids” and “Goliaths” where less-developed chemical education research communities from developing countries struggle to become integrated in the wider global research stage. Turkey is a significant outlier in this trend: according to Sözbilir (3) it is the second highest ranked contributor of chemical education research, CER, literature. Sözbilir links the remarkable increase in publications—which were only rare before 1999—to governmental policy he describes as “publish or perish”. In this approach, publishing internationally became the single most important criterion for promotion in the academic career. Nonetheless, the author warns the quality of the publications and their connections to the local needs and problems are under scrutiny. A quick analysis of the ratio of publications from advanced economies to emergent markets and developing economies (4) in Chemistry Education Research and Practice and the Journal of Chemical Education—the top two journals leading the global CER discussion—depicts a scenario dominated by the former, Table 1. Although the figures are already telling, the scenario is even more polarized when one considers nine of the publications coming from the emergent markets and developing economies are from Turkey, a country that has seen its CER production significantly increased since the turn of the century (3). Thus, all other emergent markets and developing economies represent only 7% of the “fully authored” articles. What causes this sparse contribution is a matter that deserves exploration (see Parchmann (2) for conjectures on this regard). For now, we contend not only access to the journals hinders participation, but more so the fact that there is not a substantial amount of research originating from 10

developing countries. This raises even more questions since, unlike science research, educational research demands less material resources (e.g. chemicals, facilities, instrumentation) and one could speculate this type of research would be more accessible. Alternatively, it may be that the understanding of research and the nature of its outcomes simply do not match global expectations prompting exclusion from dominating journals, both through self-exclusion and through the reviewing process. If one were to disentangle data further, it would be immediately evident not all developed countries contribute research at a similar rate. And furthermore, for those countries contributing the most, there are clear inequalities in terms of geography and type of institution within the country. Hence, the country-of-origin lens may fail to catch relevant subtleties. Nonetheless, for the purposes of this paper it suffices to argue Chemical Education is not an enterprise informed internationally. Although of less global impact, the contributions of an array of journals at the regional level should not be overlooked. Química Nova and Química Nova na Escola (Brazilian Chemical Society), Educación Química (National Autonomous University of Mexico), Australian Journal of Education in Chemistry (Royal Australian Chemical Institute), International Journal of Physics & Chemistry Education (formerly Eurasian Journal of Physics & Chemistry Education), and Khimiya (Ministry of Education and Science, Bulgaria) are just a few examples to name.

Table 1. Contributions to the Journal of Chemical Education and Chemistry Education Research and Practice by (a) advanced economies and (b) emergent markets and developing economies in 2017, (168 articles total) Country designation

Article count (% from total) Fully authoreda

Jointly authoredb

Advanced economies

147 (87.5)

13 (7.7)

Emergent markets and developing economies

21 (12.5)

8 (4.8)

a

All authors from the same country designation. the two country designations.

b

Collaboration between authors from

Thus, while common occurrences such as the apparent persistence of some misconceptions in vastly different learning environments may not cease to amaze us, they are just part of a broader, more complex picture. We view understanding others’ contexts and experiences—including those profoundly dissimilar—essential to fully grasp an enhanced comprehension of their practice of chemistry and its teaching and learning. In addition to reciprocally illuminating our learning, reflecting on one’s own context and practice through the lens of others has the potential of informing the understanding of one’s own practice. This chapter acquaints readers with chemical education and the emergence of chemical education research in Costa Rica. Although unique, the circumstances described here for this developing country may be comparable to those of similar nations. By extending understanding of each other’s reality and trajectory, 11

we believe the international chemical education community will be able to communicate and to cooperate more effectively.

Brief History and Context of Chemistry Education in Costa Rica Certainly, “there has been chemistry education in one form or another as long as there has been chemistry” (5). Juan de Dios Cespedes, a disciple of prominent researcher A. W. Hoffmann (University of Berlin), served as professor at the first higher education institution in Costa Rica, the University of Santo Tomás, founded in 1843 (6). Thus, it is very likely chemistry was somehow part of the university course catalogue in Costa Rica in the 19th Century. Nonetheless, teaching of chemistry as a major subject area of study began formally in 1950 with the launch at the University of Costa Rica of the first program in the country leading to a degree in chemistry (6). However, this fact is in conflict with the historical account Gómez-Ibañez (7) presented in the Journal of Chemical Education in 1964. Gómez-Ibañez situated the first consolidated college chemistry department to offer a degree in chemistry in Latin America at the University of Concepción, Chile, in 1960. Dispute aside, it was around this time that higher education institutions in Latin America succeeded in building the academic identity of the chemistry major. The antecedents varied by country. In the case of Costa Rica, this was preceded by a degree awarded since 1941 in “physical and chemical sciences” which enabled graduates to teach physical sciences and to receive further training, typically in state-run facilities, to perform laboratory work. Consolidation of the chemistry major was propelled by a cohort of professors who returned to the country in the 1940s upon completing advanced chemistry studies in prestigious institutions abroad. Incidentally, this trend, a significant majority of chemistry faculty undergoing extensive advanced training abroad, mostly in North America and Europe, continues to date. Currently, 74% of the faculty—which is 86% Costa Rican—received their graduate degree abroad, Table 2. Interestingly, a somehow inverse phenomenon occurs in the US: the percentage of chemistry faculty born abroad, and with no personal experience in the undergraduate US college system but with graduate training in the US, is on the rise. A decade ago, foreign-born faculty made up 21% of all US university positions in science and engineering departments (8), while a 2013 study reported 38% of the chemistry faculty in the State of Florida were foreign-educated (9). This faculty mobility and its influence on teaching and learning may pose an interesting topic of exploration that remains understudied. Table 2 contains demographics for tenured professors at the UCR. It evinces a gender gap in hiring which sadly has widened over the past decade and, as is the worldwide case, does not match the gender distribution at the undergraduate level. Teaching staff (adjunct, 9-month appointment, and permanent or continuous 12-month appointment) makes up as significant portion of the faculty. Overall, teaching staff workload is 0.77 that of tenured faculty; however, this includes academic engagements other than teaching in which non-tenured faculty may also engage. 12

Table 2. Demographics for tenured chemistry faculty (35 total) at the University of Costa Rica Gender count (%) Female: 13 (37) Male: 22 (63) Nationality count (%) Costa Rican: 31 (86) Other: 4 (14) Age range count (%) 30-39: 4 (11) 40-49: 9 (26) 50-59: 16 (46) 60-69: 4 (11) >70: 2 (6) Highest degree count (%) PhD: 25 (71) MSc: 9 (26) Other: 1 (3) Country of graduate studies count (%) Costa Rica: 9 (26)a Germany: 7 (20) Spain: 6 (17) USA: 6 (17) Canada: 3 (8.6) Belgium: 1 (2.8) France: 1 (2.8) Taiwan: 1 (2.8) UK: 1 (2.8) a

All but one of these degrees are MSc.

The relatively recent advent of chemistry education in Costa Rica and the training of most of its faculty in foreign educational systems, explain the considerable impact of external influences on the development of the field. Take for example the prevalent, if not exclusive, use of US textbooks in college chemistry courses (translated into Spanish as well as the original English editions). It is also natural in and of itself for chemical education that has developed more recently to build on the experiences of those countries with longer trajectories. The University of Costa Rica is a large research institution serving a total enrollment of more than 40,000 undergraduates and more than 3,700 graduate students. It has its roots in the University of Santo Tomás (1843) and was founded under its current name in 1940. Its academic offer includes 261 undergraduate programs and 284 graduate and specialization programs. It is top ranked amongst Latin American universities and is responsible for 50% of the scientific and academic research produced in the seven Central American countries with a combined population of approximately 47 million (10). The UCR is a selective admission institution where applicants must compete with a combination of their secondary education grades and their performance on an aptitude entrance examination. Additionally, admission to a major is competitive and based on academic performance and, in many cases, further assessment of specific skills related to the major. Annual enrolment of new students in the undergraduate chemistry program averaged 96 over the past decade while the average number of graduates in the same period of time was 30. Chemistry was not the top choice major for a considerable number of those entering students who used it as a transient major while they satisfied the requirements for their first choice major. This explains a significant portion of the apparent mortality. It is noteworthy that since its inception, the program in chemistry at the University of Costa Rica was oriented to prepare individuals interested exclusively in the practice of chemistry. This is rather different from other countries where a proportion of students may use a chemistry degree as a steppingstone to enter professional school, especially in healthcare. Thus, since its early versions the 13

chemistry program intended to enable graduates to directly enter the workforce as practicing chemists or to continue advanced studies in the chemical sciences. Development of professional identity and scientist self-image has been strongly emphasized since the onset of the program. Currently, it is patent in the course syllabi and in the general discourse shared by faculty and students. Evidence to this is the fact that all chemistry courses on the BS program are exclusive for majors, starting off with the General Chemistry sequence for which there are separated majors-only and service courses. Since its first versions, the chemistry programs have included industrial chemistry along with the traditional sub-disciplines. Table 3 shows the BS program in Chemistry at the University of Costa Rica. The decade of 1970s saw the modernization, democratization, and expansion of higher education in Costa Rica (11). Three new public universities emerged in response to the social, economic, and technological development and demands of the population: the Technological Institute of Costa Rica (ITCR), the National University of Costa Rica (UNA), and the National Distance Education University, (UNED). To put the significance of this expansion in perspective, by the beginning of the 1970s, the population in the country was just approaching two million, about half of which was rural (12). The beginning of the 1980s brought the explosion of private higher education which to date amounts to 54 institutions attended by about half of the college students in the country (13). The current population in Costa Rica is 4.9 million, that is, about the same as the States of Oregon or South Carolina in the US, and just over half that of Austria, Switzerland, or New York City. Presently, the UNA and the ITCR house the only other two schools of chemistry in the country. The former offers a major in Industrial Chemistry and, in conjunction with other schools, majors in Industrial Bioprocesses Engineering and Secondary Science/Chemistry Education. The School of Chemistry at the ITCR awards solely a degree in Environmental Engineering. As is the case at the UCR, these two institutions have large service course programs in chemistry. The other two public universities, the UNED, and the recently founded National Technical University, UTN (2008), offer their chemistry service courses through their Natural Science Departments. No private institution awards a degree in Chemistry. However, several offer lower-level chemistry courses (e.g. General, Organic, and Food Chemistry). The University of Costa Rica offers an MS in Chemistry and graduates have the option of applying for a doctoral degree in Natural Sciences with a distinction in Chemistry. To date only one individual has opted for this doctorate and the trend continues to be pursuing advanced degrees in Chemistry abroad. The BS course of study at the UCR is accredited before the National Accreditation System of Higher Education, SINAES (sinaes.ac.cr). Additionally, a sector of the faculty is interested in gaining ACS accreditation in the future. An ACS International Student Chapter was founded in 2017.

14

Table 3. BS course of study at the University of Costa Rica (course name (credits)) 1. Semester

2. Semester Humanities (6) Calculus 2 (4) Introduction to Chemistry 2 (3) Chemical Experimentation 2 (2) Linear Algebra (3)

Humanities (6) General Biology (3) General Biology Lab (1) Introduction to Chemistry 1 (3) Chemical Experimentation 1 (2) Chemical Profession (1) Pre-Calculus (0) Calculus 1 (3) Sports Activity (0) 3. Semester

4. Semester Organic Chemistry 1 (3) Organic Chemistry Lab (3) Inorganic Chemistry 1 (3) Inorganic Chemistry Lab 1 (2) Physics 2 (3) Physics 2 Lab (1) Humanities Elective (3)

Statistics & Chemistry (3) Analytical Chemistry 1 (3) Analytical Chemistry Lab (3) Physics 1 (3) Physics 1 Lab (1) Calculus 3 (4) Art Elective (2) 5. Semester

6. Semester Analytical Chemistry 2 (3) Analytical Chemistry 2 Lab (3) Physical Chemistry 1 (3) Physical Chemistry 1 Lab (3) Biochemistry (4) Seminar on National Reality 2 (2)

Organic Chemistry 2 (3) Organic Chemistry 2 Lab (3) Inorganic Chemistry 2 (3) Inorganic Chemistry 2 Lab (2) Physics 3 (3) Physics 3 Lab (1) Seminar on National Reality 1 (2) 7. Semester

8. Semester Management in the Chem. Industry (3) Industrial Processes Lab (3) Chemistry Internship (8)

Industrial Processes (3) Chemical Industry Field Visits (2) Physical Chemistry 2 (3) Physical Chemistry 2 Lab (3) Scientific Communication (2) Chemical Spectroscopy (4)

In some ways, the absence of a strong graduate program—which made of the undergraduate degree a terminal degree—resulted in very rigorous training in terms of depth and breadth. This trend persists where courses that may be offered as electives (or even at the graduate level) in other countries are mandatory for the BS at the University of Costa Rica. The minimum number of credit hours for graduation is 140, of which 16 correspond to other sciences, 14 to math, and 21 to humanities and general education. Chemistry courses amount to 88 credit hours: 51 in lecture courses, 29 in laboratories, and 8 for the mandatory internship. Interested readers can compare key features of this program (Table 3) with their institution’s or other institutions’ readily available online. It is our general impression, the BS at the UCR requires a greater number of total 15

credits and number of credits in chemistry courses than average programs in the US, where comparison is simple since both countries use the same credit hour system. Course load for the first seven semesters averages 18 credit hours. Students often engage in undergraduate research—which does not count towards graduation—undergraduate teaching assistantships, and leadership activities. This, added to the high credit semester demands, prompts students to delay graduation by a year or more.

Current Practice and Research in Chemical Education in Costa Rica Practice Teaching of college chemistry in Costa Rica follows, in general, traditional pedagogical approaches. Lecturing predominates in an environment that is instructor and content-centered. This should come as no surprise given that even where there is a long-standing tradition in chemical education, research “has far less impact on the development of theory, policy, or classroom practice, than the researchers in chemical education would wish (14).” A recent survey probing the utilization of educational literature suggests chemistry faculty at the University of Costa Rica are not exactly avid consumers of educational research (15). This preliminary evidence shows the only journal with which all faculty are acquainted is the Journal of Chemical Education. Respondents used this journal at least once over the 12-month period preceding the survey. Yet, when probed to rank sources of information guiding their teaching practices, personal experience and common sense came at the top of the list. Kempa (16) reported teachers in his study drew precisely on the same two sources of professional knowledge rather than relying on research literature. Although preliminary and warranting further analysis and interpretation, our results coincide with other reports (see for example, Gilbert (14) and Gabel (17)). Over the past decade, course management systems have been promoted heavily in Costa Rica; however, the extent of their implementation in chemistry classes remains disparate. By no means are student response systems (e.g. clickers) and other classroom engagement technology used widely in chemistry (though that is not necessarily the case for other sciences). Class attendance, in-class work, and assigned homework are largely deemed outside the realm of higher education. The instruction operates under the assumption there should be no further incentives to engage college students in these sort of actions. Tacitly, the reasoning is that college students who cannot get themselves to class, pay attention, and practice of their own volition, should probably not be in college to start with. Thus, excluding practical courses, the evaluation of college chemistry courses does not contemplate credit for such aspects. Course performance is assessed through in-term exams and, in some courses, a final. Grading scale runs from 0.0 to 10.0 with a passing grade (upon rounding) of 7.0. General, Organic and Analytical lecture courses are large-enrolment (~100) which has essentially thwarted attempts of collaborative learning. Regular courses meet twice a week for 100 minutes each time whereas intensive courses meet three 16

times a week for a total instruction time of 300 minutes. Regular semesters follow a 16-week schedule. There is access to a “study room” held once a week and open simultaneously to students in all first year science courses. Here they can meet with peers to work together and there are undergraduate science tutors available to answer questions. There are no activities structured at any level, thus this should not be confused with other formal pedagogical approaches such as peer-led instruction. Recitation or other types of supplemental instruction are not used. Independent and autonomous learning is an expectation at college level in Costa Rica even if its development is not supported. Understandably, this sink or swim approach exerts additional pressure on students’ already complex first-year college experience. Low passing rate is common for college science and math courses at public universities in Costa Rica. Table 4 shows the passing rate for chemistry service lecture courses at the UCR over three academic years. Percentages are calculated based on enrolment minus withdrawals. Course withdrawals close by the fourth week of each regular semester.

Table 4. Passing rate (%) for chemistry service courses at the UCR Term

Course 2015

2016

2017

I

II

I

II

I

II

General Chem. 1

60

40

70

33

61

44

General Chem. 2

42

61

37

64

54

72

Intensive Gen. Chem.

64

42

58

41

61

49

Analytical Chem. 1

66

57

61

56

67

62

Organic Chem. 1

51

51

48

39

54

43

Organic Chem. 2

64

45

55

69

52

58

Intensive Org. Chem.

48

58

59

59

51

55

Passing rates in Table 4 range between 33% and 72%, with two thirds of the averages below 60%. To a great extent, low passing rates are widely associated with the inherent nature and rigor of the subject and accepted as a fact of life. Proof to this is the consistent rating of most chemistry instructors as excellent in institutional student evaluations of instruction; nonetheless, evaluation results may be skewed by significant course desertion. The passing rate of a course (or section of a course) must fall below 40% to raise any concerns. Below this threshold, the course (or course section) is considered “non-ponderable” meaning it shall not be used to calculate students’ weighted grade average. It is only then expected of the department to implement a plan of action to avoid recurrence of the situation. Interestingly, the perceived connection between “high level of performance (sometimes at the expense of a wastefully high student “mortality” 17

during the first year)” is neither new nor atypical of universities in Latin American countries (7). Current laboratory instruction is verification-based with a strict focus on mastering of experimental techniques, though there is an incipient push for change. Undergraduate teaching assistants, UTAs, who are in charge of most of the grading (quizzes, lab notebook, and reports) and in-lab supervision, facilitate practicals. However, the presence of an instructor of record in the lab at all times during the practicals is mandatory and strictly observed. General Chemistry Laboratory sessions are capped at 24 students. Although this is set to change, prelab discussions for General Chemistry (50 min) are led by the UTA. In the case of Organic and Analytical Chemistry, these discussions occur simultaneously for multiple sections at a time different from the practical schedule and are held by a faculty member. Reform has infused debate for much of college chemistry education history. In 1929, Havighurst (18) objected the emphasis on a curriculum and instructional approach that perpetuated students’ “intellectual inertia”. Although his article focused on curriculum, his stance alluded to the necessary revision of teleology and pedagogical approaches in chemistry education. Such calls for reform continue and have strengthened over recent decades (19, 20). The conversation around STEM education in Costa Rica has not been void of its own calls for reform. The Report on the State of Education (a quinquennial study commissioned by the National Council of Rectors of the public university system) has described the need to “produce generalized changes to the educational practices developed in the classrooms” as fundamental to achieve effective improvements to education (13). Amongst some significant broad scope actions in the country is the STEMCR Program led by LASPAU (www.laspau.harvard.edu) in conjunction with the National Accreditation System of Higher Education, SINAES (sinaes.ac.cr). This initiative responds to a call to further professional development of college STEM faculty in the country. Its ambitious goal is to train 100 STEM faculty from public and private institutions on the implementation of innovative strategies to promote active learning. Nevertheless, it would be ingenuous to believe concerns with chemical education and interest in improvements are only recent. Panel sessions on chemical education at the Tenth Latin American Chemistry Congress held at the University of Costa Rica in 1969 were reported to have “attracted larger audiences (by a large margin) than most of the technical sessions” (21). Over the years, the University of Costa Rica has maintained institutional initiatives to advance faculty teaching training and facilitate the insertion of technology and innovative instructional strategies. As expected of any modern large research university, the UCR has dedicated institutional units in charge of providing resources to support instructional personnel. This includes events such as workshops, on-demand professional development for academic units, ICT training, and regular semester courses on teaching and learning exclusive for faculty. There is no teaching certificate, as is the case of many other universities, but faculty may choose to complete a three-semester graduate program leading to a Licentiature in University Education. 18

Research A series of events in the first half of the 1990s cemented chemical education research in the US. Highlights of those events are the consolidation of the first chemical education doctoral programs within Departments of Chemistry in the US, the ACS symposium “What is Chemistry Education Research” (22), and the report by the Task Force on Chemical Education Research (23). In 1994, Metz (22) defined chemistry education research as “the systematic and objective search for answers to meaningful questions about the teaching and learning of chemistry.” In differentiating it from the practice of chemical education, more recently Taber (5) noted research “requires an engagement with the current state of knowledge, shared concepts and accepted methodologies in the field.” The distinction between chemical education and chemical education research as a scholarly field developed organically in some countries. This is not the case in Costa Rica, and most probably neither in other countries where the introduction of chemical education in general occurred later in time but at a faster pace. Current chemical education in Costa Rica can be described as mostly centered on scholarship of teaching and learning with only an incipient research component. At this point, it may be fair to ponder what benefits could entail developing chemical education research in countries that lag behind in the field. Sheer power of numbers may make an obvious argument: the more individuals engaged in research, the more the field will advance, at least in principle. Arguments of equity or inclusion and social justice may not be as immediately clear in the international landscape as they are within national borders, though for sure they are applicable. We echo Medina and Diver’s in reckoning diversity as inherently relevant for the construction of knowledge and for the enterprise of science (24). We maintain common rationales, such as this one, amplify their strength and impact at the international level simply because entire systems are diverse and not only groups of individuals within a context. To exemplify this, let us think of an international scholar doing research work in the US. Her worldviews certainly will contribute diversity to her team’s work; nonetheless, as diverse as her perspectives may be, her experience is lodged in a common context. There is good reason to believe the research experience of that same scholar in her native environment might inform her work in different ways. Chemical education research carried out from international or multi-national platforms (and not just by diverse individuals) affords a unique set of lenses to examine the teaching and learning of chemistry. In the introduction, we cautioned against the oversimplistic understanding of chemistry as a common language that could foster the false impression the practice and learning of chemistry is somehow universal. Work by Bang, Medin and Atran (25) in the interface of cognitive psychology and anthropology suggests there is an intricate interaction between what people think and how they think, that is, between cultural processes and cognitive processes. Thus, it follows the way in which individuals learn science is influenced by their experiences with the surroundings. This proposal underscores the compelling case for enriching findings through diversity not only at the person level but at the context level, too. At the same time, it cautions too against quick claims of generalizability and 19

transferability, especially given convenience sampling is predominant in chemical education research and replication studies are not common. We noted above that despite available research and enhanced understanding of teaching and learning of chemistry, and calls for reform from policy makers, practice of chemical education at tertiary level has evolved only modestly (20). Many factors contribute to the slow adoption of findings from educational research. Seethaler (26) poses, for instance, that lack of the necessary science education background prevents instructors from adequately implementing curricular or pedagogical reforms derived from research findings. In our view, a significant factor at the international level is the lack of context-relevant research findings. If reforms or innovations stem from research carried out in contexts far removed from theirs, international practitioners will be less likely to advance reforms or innovations. The above arguments strongly support the notion that nurturing chemical education research internationally will further the advancement of the field and beget global benefits. Since the turn of the century, authors with UCR affiliation have contributed nine papers in chemistry/science education journals or books. From them three are teaching activities or approaches (27–29), one is an academic laboratory experiment (30), and five are research-based (31–35). The first three research papers fall within McIntyre’s second type of educational research: “Evaluation of existing policies or practices intended to inform subsequent decisions and actions” (14). This set of papers makes a methodological proposal to study learning in the college laboratory utilizing a phenomenological approach. Through phenomenological reduction, the authors investigated the lived experience of participants who underwent change (reform) of the learning environment to which they were exposed in the General Chemistry laboratory sequence. Although the authors do not endorse a specific instructional style, their research suggests instructional practices that align with very distinct goals, thus intending to inform instructors’ decision-making process when designing learning experiences. As corollary, the authors put forth the use of Mindfulness Theory (36) to continue the investigation of laboratory learning environments. The latter two articles fall within McIntyre’s research Type 5: “Research aimed at generating new knowledge, the impact of which on practice is uncertain, diffuse, or long-term”. These two papers are product of a collaborative, cultural-comparison study between a university in Costa Rica and one in the US. The intention of the research was to empirically validate a hypothetical learning progression of chemical identity. Amongst other things, the authors concluded reasoning applied to chemical identity by participants in both institutions was very similar, thus contributing validity evidence for the learning progression. Where there were reasoning differences, they were attributed to influences of curriculum, social and cultural characteristics of the student population, and aspects related to the economic reality for each institution. A much older contribution by a Costa Rican that warrants recognition is the arrangement of the elements in an alternative Periodic Table proposed by Chaverri(37) in 1953. This work, which has sadly gone mostly unexamined, is particularly notable since it originated from a primarily agrarian society, a decade 20

before the industrialization of the economy started, and in a country that had not even graduated its first generation of chemists. Examples of Ongoing Research Over the past five years chemistry faculty at the University of Costa Rica have designed and advanced projects that fulfill the characteristics currently considered fundamental for chemical education research (23). Following we introduce the basics of two current projects which exemplify the nature of such efforts.

Student Perception of In-Class, Interactive Strategies To Promote Attention, Interest, and Generation of Explanations in Large-Enrollment Chemistry Courses As seen previously, evolution of practice of chemical education at tertiary level has not kept with advancement of educational research (20). We believe this misalignment is even more accentuated in countries where there is no solid tradition of chemical education research. Some preconceptions turned into obstacles in such environments may be that reform (a) requires insurmountable resources, (b) must completely eradicate current models of instruction, (c) works only in institutions with certain characteristics associated with financial resources and instructor skills, and (d) works only with students of certain characteristics (cognitive and attitudinal). To some extent, these preconceptions are unintendedly fostered by the fact chemical education research typically originates from institutions to which most instructors will generally have difficulty relating. Even more so for instructors in developing countries. Thus, we make a case for original and replication research in truly diverse environments, specifically, diverse countries and educational systems. With this in mind, a team at the University of Costa Rica has developed simpler, more adaptable, and less demanding approaches to reform that may serve as steppingstone in procuring greater reform goals. This work explores student perception of the effectiveness of simple, easy to implement interactive strategies embedded in traditional lectures to develop interest in the subject, support student attention, and promote student-generated explanations. The research uses a control-treatment design with matched instructors in a large enrollment General Chemistry course. In addition to the pilot trial, the study has gathered data using mixed-methods (Likert scales and open questions) over the course of three semesters to furnish replication evidence. Findings from learning sciences, cognitive sciences and educational psychology clearly suggest individuals are likely to learn more in environments that promote interactions with others than learning alone (38). Likewise, chemical education literature has arrived at the consensus “active learning” in its many expressions (e.g. peer instruction, small group work) enhances the learning experience compared to traditional approaches (26) and produces higher learning outcomes (39). Thus our interest in approaching reform from this perspective. For the design of its activities, this study used the ICAP theoretical framework put forth by Chi (40) and that we has been applied to chemical education in prior work (41–43). In this framework, an interactive activity is one that prompts dialogue 21

with a peer, expert, or intelligent system so that all participants make substantive contributions and no contribution is ignored (42). The activities varied in nature and extension so that they allowed embedding in lecture as the instructor saw it fits. Activities occurred during all lectures in the semester, their implementation did not require any especial arrangement (facilities or equipment). The breadth and depth of topics covered were the same as in other sections of the course and the same syllabus and class schedule were maintained. No credit was assigned to the activities and attendance to class was not mandatory (as is the case for all sections of the course). Statistical analysis and interpretation of surveys, and inductive reduction analysis and interpretation of textual data are convergent. Both sources of evidence support the emergence of a difference between the treatment and control conditions in terms of their perception of the activities’ influence on attention, interest, participation, and generation of explanations. The evidence strongly supports research literature: the treatment group’s perception is their attention, interest, and participation were supported by the implementation of the interactive activities. Furthermore, their perception was these activities impacted their learning positively. Additionally, passing rate and student retention were higher for the treatment group. Nonetheless, we prefer not to make associations between these results and the intervention given the myriad of confounding factors affecting these outcomes (for instance, exams are not rigorously validated, like is the case in most universities, thus we are skeptical to make claims based on their use even if they support our findings). We support a more fundamental interpretation. Learning theories across the board maintain student spontaneous engagement in the learning experience is essential for learning to take place. Attention, interest, and participation (through, for example, generation of explanations) are instantiations of engagement. Thus, we reckon that by promoting this behavior these activities improve chances for quality learning.

Web 2.0 Tools Impact on the Teaching-Learning Process of Basic Concepts in College Organic Chemistry in Large Enrolment Courses The emergence of information and communication technologies (ICT) has produced a conspicuous change in daily life. For people immersed in technologies nowadays, a world without them has become unimaginable. Although presence of ICT in human development can have a positive or negative impact, in education they afford the possibility to reach an increased number of participants and enhance opportunities for development. The term ICT comprises several techniques in a cluster, among the most representative are communication networks such as Internet, which has evolved rapidly. Some authors describe its evolution stages as Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0, and even Web 4.0 (44, 45). Web 1.0 includes all the tools to disseminate information in one direction so it is a passive means through which people just seek information but do no create it (46). On the other hand, Web 2.0 refers to diverse techniques, services, and tools that enable participants to collaborate in the generation of knowledge, creation of content, and sharing of information 22

online (47). Even though Web 2.0 applications were not specifically created for academic use, they are very popular in education (see, for example, the Top 200 Tools for Learning 2017). Additionally, young people utilize them in their spare time and have become rather proficient in their use. Web 2.0 tools offer new ways to support learning environments for students, and using tools that students find appealing may impact their learning. Insufficient motivation, lack of confidence, negative expectations, sense of anonymity in large groups, and other factors detrimental to the teaching-learning experience may be overcome by improved peer-to-peer and student-to-instructor interactions through ICT. This interaction may encourage cooperation among undergraduates and promote active learning. This study recruited participants enrolled in six sections of two courses, Intensive Organic Chemistry and General Organic Chemistry. The average section size was 90 students. All sections experienced the standard lecture environment; however, three of them also utilized a blog and videos related to key concepts of organic chemistry. Students contributed actively to the blog, sharing examples and asking questions, and received feedback from other students and from the researcher in charge of the blog. The blog was active for five weeks, until the time of the examination that assessed the corresponding contents. The participants in the study completed various instruments for research data gathering. The evidence collected suggests students consistently hold the perception the Web 2.0 tools introduced to supplement instruction assisted their learning and preparation for the examinations. Likewise, instructors assigned to the treatment sections acknowledged the Web 2.0 tools supported the educational process. Besides, findings suggest the blog and videos had a positive impact on students’ academic performance.

Final Remarks Effective communication amongst chemistry researchers and chemistry educators from different countries, and national, cultural and ethnical backgrounds requires more than the common language of chemistry. A better understanding of the multiple realities (e.g. contexts, interests, expectations, resources and limitations) where chemistry and chemistry education are practiced is indispensable for interested parties to collaboratively attain substantive dialogue. The participation of emerging economies and developing countries in the leading chemical education journals is only scant. Reflection on the possible causes is beyond the scope of this article. Although the state of the matter may pose a challenge for the international chemical education community, working on its solutions may bring an opportunity to advance towards a truly global chemical education agenda. Like in any other human endeavor, true functional diversity has the potential of enhancing outcomes. Chemical education and chemical education research are emergent fields of scholarly work in Costa Rica. The information in this chapter, though not exhaustive, affords the readers a chance to identify similarities and differences 23

with their realities and to broaden their perspective to be receptive to learn more about other countries. We have tried to introduce some provocative thoughts to encourage readers to question presuppositions about education in general, and chemical education in specific, in developing countries such as Costa Rica. Likewise, we hope this work contributes to dispel misconceptions when necessary (although we reckon the persistence of misconceptions even before solid opposing evidence). We remain enthusiastically open to further this discussion with colleagues from around the world through any means available and to establish fruitful collaborations.

References 1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

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Chapter 3

Discovering Laboratory Safety Misconceptions in Secondary Students To Promote Science Conceptual Understanding W. E. Schatzberg* Physical Science Department, Dixie State University, St. George, Utah 84770, United States *E-mail: [email protected].

Student cognitive constructions are based on a variety of information students experience, such as media, personal experience, and previous classroom work. The student constructs experiencial information together to create theories about how the world works around them. The study of student misconceptions, ideas that differ from the commonly accepted theories that are accepted by experts in the field, can give an insight into how students are cognitively connecting ideas together and formulating educational theories that are harmful to the student and to their academic career. Researchers (Erickson, G. L. Sci. Educ. 1980, 64, 323−336; Doran, R. L. J Res. Sci. Teach. 1972, 9, 127−137) have previously showed that misconceptions students have about the world are useful to instructors and curriculum developers because the researchers can use this knowledge to construct activities to aid students developing a more reasonable understandings. Understanding how high achieving students construct concepts and what types of misconceptions are present may give new information into the role curricula plays in student learning. Singapore is consistently one of the foremost countries in student science scores and has been for many years. The goal of this research project is to discover Singaporean student misconceptions involving laboratory science theories using a Laboratory Concept Questionnaire and discover how students are forming these misconceptions.

© 2018 American Chemical Society

Introduction Misconceptions are student conceptions that do not correspond correctly to scientific theory. These misconceptions can hinder student learning and prevent students from achieving goals within their student career. Hammer (3) named misconception properties as: (1) having a strongly held cognitive structure, (2) differing from expert cognitive constructions, (3) affecting students’ understanding of natural phenomena, and (4) something that must be eliminated from students’ mental models (3). Many researchers have noted that the failure to address student misconceptions may be due to a mismatch between a student’s common knowledge and school knowledge (4–7). A major difference between school and a student’s home is the “heavy use of tools to solve problems in everyday settings (8).” Resnick (8) noticed that in contrasting school and home environments, abstract knowledge is favored in the school lectures while contextual knowledge is favored at home. This difference in knowledge types may provide insights into how misconceptions form and how the laboratory, where scientific theory is applied in the physical world, may be the place that misconceptions can be more readily eliminated. Abstract reasoning can be reinforced by showing students contextualized material that is akin to their home environment (9). Student conceptual understanding is defined as students having the ability to use knowledge, apply it to problems, and associate ideas to create new concepts (10, 11). Students build conceptual knowledge using newly acquired information, incorporating it into their existing mental structure, and then create a cohesive mental model in the process (12). However, students often have imprecise and incoherent knowledge before entering the classroom and any new knowledge students learn may be incorporated incorrectly into their mental model. Examples of this are seen when students use the knowledge pieces to lend support to a previous misconception, rather than incorporating the whole knowledge concept that challenges their preconception. Students may not understand the new knowledge they gained and hence the student may misinterpret the information based on previous cognitive models. Students may create piecework knowledge structures based more upon rote memorization than full conceptual understanding (13, 14). This compartmentalized information allows for only surface level understanding and does not allow the student to use and adapt the information into a functional mental model (15). Traditional teaching philosophies (14, 15) suggest that students come into the classroom first as blank slates and absorb theories only within the classroom. Recent theories about how students create misconceptions deviate from the previous teaching philosophies, suggesting that students learn by adapting previously acquired information into a cognitive web and add or remove from the web when new information is learned and applied. These learning theories would explain how students arrive at different conclusions when the students are provided the same knowledge within the science classroom. Constructivist theory states that students do not walk into a science classroom as blank slates but as those who construct new understandings based upon their prior knowledge. According to Strike and Posner (16), along with McCloskey (17), students’ 28

prior knowledge consists of misconceptions that are maintained due to students creating a transitional stage level of understanding. Misconceptions exist as stable knowledge in students’ conceptual understanding as a result of students fluctuating between their original conception, and the new conception they are learning (18–20). This mental construction is how students accommodate inconsistencies in their reasoning. The constructivist theory hypothesizes that conceptual change occurs when a student is confronted with evidence that contradicts the old conceptions and then the student is able to repair the misconception with scientifically accepted theory (16). This study focuses on identifying students’ misconceptions about chemistry theory and its application within the laboratory. Understanding what misconceptions students have about science theory gives an insight into how students are applying lecture concepts and provides valuable information into what experimental procedures are reinforcing misconceptions or assisting in eliminating them. Misconceptions occur when a student’s mental representation of a concept does not correspond to scientifically accepted representations; with safety considerations, these misconceptions can be dangerous to both the student and others within the laboratory classroom (2). Identification of common student misconceptions is important to determine what topics are the most difficult for students to clearly understand and to create appropriate curricula that challenges these conceptions. Misconceptions can lead to decreased academic performance and possibly create hazardous laboratory conditions. Unlike other coursework, the sciences ask the student to adapt abstract theories they learn in lecture to the practicality of the laboratory. This makes laboratory misconceptions more hazardous to students because a student mistake potentially has real world consequences beyond failing the coursework (21). Laboratory work is recognized as a place for students to acquire laboratory techniques and a place for students to apply lecture theory to real life applications. Laboratory safety is of importance because students are working around dangerous chemicals and need to know about proper handling techniques. The hazards with the laboratory are prevalent and while there is some consideration for the novice learning, such as the use of low concentration solutions, there are some chemical and physical hazards that cannot be completely avoided. Students may go through a safety talk or test at the beginning of a laboratory class, but there is the possibility that the students may not retain the information or apply pertinent chemistry theory appropriately to working in the laboratory. The science education literature contains a number of studies about students’ misconceptions regarding different areas of chemistry, but not to a large extent about misconceptions regarding laboratory concepts. Previous studies on science misconceptions have addressed specific classes such as atmospheric chemistry (21, 22) or in specific groups of people (3, 23), but it does not appear that a broad spectrum of lower level undergraduate chemistry courses have been questioned about laboratory safety conceptions. One of the most recent published research studies on the topic of laboratory safety by Churchill (24) who did a study on laboratory hazards but did not fully address students’ misconceptions about laboratory safety. This study is designed to fill in the information gap of student laboratory misconceptions and use science theory in laboratory practices. There 29

have been some misconception studies done previously in Asia but the subject matter has been mostly within biological field pertaining to subject-specific topics such as light and vision (25, 26). While it is important to know students’ misconceptions in biology, it would also be of importance to discover what misconceptions are occurring in the field of chemistry laboratory safety. Identifying misconceptions can give an instructor insight into what their students believe about science and provide important information into what concepts are difficult for a student to master (27). By understanding the students’ misconceptions an instructor can identify how students are creating a conceptual framework. The relevant information can be used to produce a student relevant example of how their erroneous concept does not work with an applicable real world example (28–30). The purpose of this study is to determine student laboratory misconceptions by using an open ended written questionnaire and evaluating students and instructors on a quantitative and qualitative scale. The Laboratory Concept Questionnaire was given to observe any student misconceptions and identify which misconceptions were most prevalent among the students. The Questionnaire has been previously used in research studies and evaluated qualitatively for reliability and validity on United States students in first semester general chemistry laboratory classes (31). The student and instructor answers were analyzed by key words and concepts for the given questions. The Laboratory Concept Questionnaire is composed of fourteen case study essay questions that present a situation to the student and ask them within the context of the question to define key terms, describe any emotions they felt, and elaborate on how the student would use their knowledge to handle the situation. The questions are posed as scenarios rather than single sentence questions to promote students into responding similar to how they would truly react within the laboratory. This is to promote student answers that reflect their beliefs rather than have students respond with a memorized answer. There are only fourteen questions in the questionnaire due to the nature of the questions; essay questions with students responding with in-depth high cognitive load answers. There were four types of questions, with some of the questions having more than one theme: procedural (6 questions), concepts (6 questions), terminology (3 questions), and daily life reference (2 questions).

Methods Singapore was known for its excellent with mathematics and science education (32) and the country was a mixture of eastern and western culture. The primary language in Singapore was English, which allowed qualitative interviews to be conducted without the added variable of a language translation skewing the data. Appropriate human subject paperwork was filed at both the school and country level to allow for student participation. Students in Singapore were solicited for participation and the Questionnaire was administered via computer over approximately thirty minutes. Each participating student section had their classroom instructor and a member of the research team present in the room while the Questionnaire was given. The supervision was planned to insure that 30

the instructor could supervise the students, handle any difficulties, and prevent students from referencing outside sources. The Questionnaires were given at end of the spring semester after the students had completed a full year of chemistry coursework. Students were chosen based on the premise that they had become familiar with chemistry concepts found in the Questionnaire and instructors had opportunities to correct any concept mistakes shown by the students. The overall participation rate was 95% of the combined enrollment from each school, with 91% from the Secondary School (72 out of 79 students) and 99% from the Junior College (72 out of 74 students). The schools were chosen based on the willingness of instructor participation. The Questionnaire was slightly adapted to the Singapore research population by soliciting expert opinions. The adapted Questionnaire had one change in wording: “fume cupboard” rather than “fume hood”. Both terms refer to the standard piece of equipment found in a general chemistry laboratory, the term is slightly different due to the difference between American and Singaporean English. The change in the Questionnaire was deemed negligible to the study analysis by experts in Singapore and the United States. The adapted Questionnaire was used in the two study classrooms and can be found in the Appendix. The Questionnaire had been previously used in research studies and evaluated qualitatively for reliability and validity with United States students in first semester general chemistry laboratory classes (31). The Questionnaire grading rubric used in this study was based on country specific answers provided by Singaporean chemistry laboratory experts and instructors. Experts, defined as those who have taught chemistry for three or more years within Singapore, were solicited to complete the laboratory safety questionnaire as a basis of comparison. Each Questionnaire question was evaluated quantitatively and qualitatively, with each question being assigned a score consisting of a numerical component and coded for key words. This study focused on identifying students’ misconceptions about chemistry theory and its application within the laboratory. The central objective of the proposed research was to understand what misconceptions about chemistry and laboratory safety were prevalent among school students regarding the chemistry laboratory. The Laboratory Concept Questionnaire was analyzed by identifying key words and concepts for the given situations posed to the students. In the Questionnaire, students were prompted to demonstrate proper usage of chemistry theory in real world applications and to create an atmosphere where students were encouraged to use informed decisions with regard to chemical hazards.

Discussion One of the goals of this questionnaire was to assess the student’s misconceptions about chemistry laboratory safety practices within a chemistry laboratory class at both the Secondary and Junior College level. Analysis was carried out by identifying evidence of key words and primary concept knowledge. The Questionnaire data was verified using student interviews and using inter-rater reliability. Reliability was confirmed via student interviews two months after the 31

initial interviews and comparing student responses between the interview and the Questionnaire. Reliability was confirmed if students repeated their answers they had given previously. Questionnaire validity was established in student interviews by verifying that the researcher’s interpretation of Questionnaire answers matched the student interpretation of their answers. Student interview and researcher coding agreement was seen as appropriate validity check upon the research results. The establishment of Questionnaire analysis keywords was verified using inter-rater reliability using Singapore and United States experts. The experts evaluated a small sample of student questionnaires and independently created the same keyword set in evaluating the student answers.

Question Types The concepts addressed in the Questionnaire dealt with hazard rankings of acids versus bases, mercury spill, gas leak, fume cupboard usage, strong versus weak acids, unknown chemical spill, dilution of a concentrated acid, and definitions of the terms toxic and carcinogenic (Appendix, Figure 1). Analysis of the questionnaire data shows that students appear to have some difficulties with understanding specific terminology due to previous learning outside of the laboratory classroom. This hypothesis is based on students confusing chemistry concepts on both the Questionnaires and during the interviews using information based personal experience at home and in their lives.

Real Life References Questions were asked to determine if students were relating real life experiences to the laboratory and if those real life scenarios were having an effect on laboratory procedures. Questions 5b and 7 were questions that were the most direct in asking students a question similar to something they would see in real life with the terminology carcinogenic and how to handle a gas leak. Carcinogenic is a term that was confirmed to have real world relevance by asking in student interviews if the students had seen the term outside the laboratory. The students recognized the term in the context of a warning about grilling foods and on cigarette packages. Students knew the warning in the real world, as stated in interviews they gave examples about smoking and grilling, but when questioned about what the term would mean in the laboratory context they were confused. The gas leak question was considered to have real world relevance in student interviews. The majority of secondary (71%) and junior college (75%) students answered that they would turn off the gas line themselves and in interviews were articulate that they felt comfortable handing this situation due to experience with natural gas in their own kitchens.

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Figure 1. Clustering of Question Types Scientific Terminology Questions 1, 5, and 9 introduced a scientific laboratory term such as “toxic” or “carcinogenic” and asked the student in a case study what the term meant. The term ‘toxic’ (Question 1) appeared to be easily recognized by the students and understood, with majority of students associating the term with poison, dangerous, and/or harmful. Carcinogenic (Question 5) was a term that most students did not answer but still had a good population that did write that it related somehow to cancer. For question 9, strong vs. weak terminology, the common usage of the terms strong and weak in everyday language gave the students an incorrect idea about properties of acids and bases. Approximately 78% of the Junior College students and 81% of the Secondary students believed that strong acids would be more hazardous than weak acids. In student interviews, no students, when asked 33

to elaborate upon their choice of strong over weak, mentioned anything besides that strong meant powerful or concentrated. The student discussions of what the term ‘strong’ meant rarely mentioned the theory of hydrogen dissociation within the solution. Since the terms ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ had been discussed in lecture these results may be evidence to students not bridging between concepts learned in lecture and the application of said concepts in the laboratory. Procedural The chemistry laboratory emphasizes the learning of proper laboratory techniques and hazardous chemical handling. Questions 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8 referred to these procedures to question students about these laboratory practices. These questions pertain to how to deal with chemical spills, dilution, and general chemical handling. An unexpected occurrence was seen with the evaluation of data pertaining to the question about the dilution of a concentrated acid (Question 6a). The same percentage of Junior College students (6%) and Secondary students (6%) correctly answered that acid needs to be poured into water and not water into acid. The Junior College students were expected to have a higher percentage of correct responses because they have had more laboratory experience in using these concepts than the Secondary school students. An explanation of these results could be that the upper division students became too involved with describing the equipment needed for the procedure rather than describing the theory behind the process. In student interviews, this phenomenon of over description of the equipment and under description of the chemical concepts was seen. Scientific Concepts A variety of scientific concepts were incorporated into the questionnaire to determine if students were applying lecture content to the laboratory experience. Questions 2, 3, 4, 6b, 8, and 9 discussed topics such as acid dissociation, gas theory, and neutralization. A common misconception is that acids are worse than bases (Question 2) whereas it can be either acids or bases that can cause harm. The decrease 91% Secondary students, 68% Junior College) in the percentage of students answering in this manner may be due to instructor reinforcement of alkali chemicals hazards or the introduction of new material that allowed the student to change their viewpoints. From interviews and student elaboration on the Questionnaire, the primary source of this misconception appears to be media such as books, television, movies, etc. describing acids to be extremely hazardous to someone’s health but rarely describing bases being shown as a threat or hazard.

Conclusion The analysis of what misconceptions were occurring with students is of importance from both the safety aspect and from science theory laboratory applications. Students need to be able to apply scientific theory to laboratory work and use chemistry concepts to evaluate their own safety risks. This research 34

study was done to identify common misconceptions and discover possible causes for students’ misconceptions. Terms such as ‘weak’ or ‘strong’ appear difficult for students to understand, possibly due the terminology denoting different phenomena in the chemistry laboratory compared to real life usage of the terms. The acid dilution concepts appears to have the same amount of students incorrectly answering the question throughout students’ academic career and perhaps instructors should devote more emphasis on safety training in regards to this topic. While acid dilution may be seen as a purely technical laboratory concept, the concept of acid and water interaction concerns both laboratory and lecture learning. Lecture and Laboratory instruction should reinforce what is occurring when acids are in water, why dilution is important and describe the physical processes. The addition of new instructional materials may give students a better understanding to why laboratory techniques are done and reinforce acid/base chemistry.

Acknowledgments The author would like to acknowledge that this project could not have been completed without the assistance of the Singapore Ministry of Education, Singapore National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University, and the National Science Foundation EAPSI fellowship (NSF# 1015151). Dr. Baohui Zhang of Shaanxi Normal University in Xi’an, China, was a great help to the success of this research project and assisted in the data collection. In addition, I would like to thank the experts, principals, teachers, and students at the participating schools for their cooperation and assistance.

Appendix: Laboratory Concept Questionnaire 1a. Julia who works in a chemistry laboratory and held up a chemical bottle and reads the label on it. The label reads “Toxic”. What does “Toxic” mean to you? 1b. What precaution would you suggest to her when handling the chemical? 2a. You walk into your laboratory class to do your experiment. Your lab partner has already got the chemicals, acids and bases, which you need for the experiment. Which chemical type, acids or bases, should you have more caution to work with and describe your reasoning for your answer. 2b. What chemical concepts and theories did you use in thinking about the previous question discussing the hazards of acids and bases? 3.

You and your lab partner are working on your laboratory project and your lab partner gets some chemicals to start the experiment. While getting the chemicals your lab partner accidently gets a moderate amount of 35

unknown chemical on their skin, but doesn’t feel any effect from the spill. How should you and your lab partner react to the spill? 4.

Your classmates would like to know what types chemicals need to be handled in a fume cupboard/fume hood. What would you tell them?

5a. A student asks you to explain in simple terms what carcinogenic means. What would your answer be? 5b. Have you seen the term carcinogenic in a laboratory or in daily life? 6a. A student is asked to dilute a concentrated acid solution with water. Explain to the student how should they do this and provide instructions on the necessary safety precautions. 6b. What chemistry concepts and theories did you think about when you answered the last question? 7.

A student enters a vacant laboratory room and realizes that someone has forgotten to turn off the gas line used for bunsen burners and that a bunsen burner is still on. What should the student do and why?

8a. Mary accidentally broke a mercury thermometer while rinsing it in the sink after an experiment. What do you think she should she do and why? 8b. Describe your answer to the previous question. Why were the actions you described appropriate in the previous question? 9.

Mike looks at two chemicals he found in the fume hood. One is labeled as a strong acid and the other is labeled as a weak acid and both solutions have the same concentration. Which solution is more harmful and why?

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Chapter 4

Student-Curated Exhibitions: Alternative Assessment in Chemistry Education in Israel Ron Blonder* Department of Science Teaching, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel *E-mail: [email protected].

The chapter describes a reform in the Israeli education system that has significantly influenced chemistry teaching and learning. In this reform 30% of the final high-school chemistry grade was replaced by alternative assessment methods. These new standards of the nation-wide evaluation left the teachers with a great challenge, since they have neither knowledge about alternative assessment nor the experience to use it. In order to meet the chemistry teachers’ needs, a professional development (PD) course was developed, emphasizing the use of student-curated exhibitions as an example of the alternative assessment method. This chapter describes the professional development course and includes a description of its different components. A research study that was conducted captured the teachers’ perspectives regarding the use of student-curated exhibitions for alternative assessment. Teachers’ challenges are described as well as the way they realize the advantages of using this approach and its adaptation to their school culture after they had an opportunity to self-curate an exhibition in the course. We found that the need to replace the evaluation methods encourages the chemistry teachers to deepen their knowledge of evaluation and assessment, and to understand the limitations and advantages of traditional evaluation and alternative assessment. Teachers also realized the strong reciprocal connection between the three components: teaching, learning, and evaluation.

© 2018 American Chemical Society

Introduction The origin of the term “test” is from the Latin word: testū, testum, which was an instrument used for measuring the purity of metals, and the word assessment is derived from Latin assēssus, meaning “seated beside” (1). If we think about the meaning of test and testing, the original meaning of the word is still associated with the word nowadays. A test is an instrument for measuring the level of knowledge or skill that has been acquired by the tested person. It is objective and reliable. Assessment, on the other hand, is based on a process that takes place between the teacher and the students, aiming at constructing an accurate profile of the student as a learner. In this chapter I describe an alternative assessment approach and the way it was implemented in a national education reform in Israel. A detailed description of one method of alternative assessment that was applied in chemistry education (a student-curated exhibition) is presented from the perspective of the chemistry teachers.

What Is Alternative Assessment? Common characteristics of alternative assessments are described in Herman, et al. (2): “(a) Ask students to perform, create, produce, or do something; (b) tap higher level thinking and problem-solving skills; (c) use tasks that represent meaningful instructional activities; (d) invoke real-world applications; (e) people, not machines, do the scoring, using human judgment; and (f) require new instructional and assessment roles for teachers” (Ref. (2), p. 6). In this chapter, the term alternative assessment will be used in this spirit to describe assessment methods that differ from tests. Alternative assessing and testing differ from each other but both are used to evaluate students’ achievements. The reason for evaluating students’ achievements is to obtain valid information for decision making. The decision makers include the teacher, the student, the school principal, or even decision makers at the national level. Each case requires different decisions, such as decisions regarding teaching, learning, learning programs, schools, and other educational organizations. There are several differences between alternative assessment and testing, as summarized in Table 1. From reading Table 1, it is evident that alternative assessment can lead to achieving the desired educational goals. Students are more involved in regulating their learning, and they are evaluated on a variety of skills beyond those that can be evaluated by a written test. The evaluation is part of the learning process and is not an isolated disconnected event. Bearing in mind the challenges of using alternative assessment (e.g., its reliability and validity) (3), these positive outcomes were recognized in other educational systems (e.g., the US), which recommended that alternative assessment tools be integrated into the regular curriculum and evaluation system.

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Table 1. Main differences between testing and alternative assessment, based on Birenbaum (1) Criterion

Test

Alternative assessment

The tools

Tests

Portfolio, building a game, designing an exhibit, preparing a summary, writing a report (and more)

The assessed capabilities

Cognitive capabilities with emphasis on logic and linguistic abilities

Cognitive capabilities as well as social and personal abilities with emphasis on a variety of abilities (e.g., musical, special) based on the multiple intelligence theory

The nature of assignments

Artificial

Authentic, relevant to student life, are taken from real life that is outside school activities

What is being evaluated?

Only products

Products, processes, and reflection abilities

Who are the evaluators?

The teacher, the expert

The student himself, peers, the teachers, and parents.

The evaluation criteria

Hidden from the student

Formulated with the student

Responsibility for the evaluation

The teacher

The teacher and the student share joint responsibility

The reported result

A numeric grade

A detailed performance profile

The role of evaluation

External supervision of the educational system

Provides clear goals for teaching and learning

The connection between teaching and evaluation

Teaching and testing are two separate stages

Teaching and assessments are integrated

The hidden assumption regarding the evaluation approach

There is a universal meaning for grades; a certain grade in a test has the same meaning for each student

In a multicultural society differences between perspectives are inevitable and even desirable

A Call for New Assessment More Suitable to the New Standards in Science Education According to National Science Education Standards (4), “Assessment policies and practices should be aligned with the goals, students’ expectations, and curriculum frameworks. Within the science program, the alignment of assessment with curriculum and teaching is one of the most critical pieces of science education reform” (Ref (4), p. 211). This statement is still relevant and even more challenging when we examine the Next Generation of Science Standards (NGSS) framework. The NGSS structures science learning around 41

three dimensions: “the practices through which scientists and engineers do their work; the key crosscutting concepts that link the science disciplines; and the core ideas of the disciplines of life sciences, physical sciences, earth and space sciences, and engineering and technology.” (NRC, 2014 (5), p. 1). This new K-12 framework stipulates that implementing the new standards will require new modes of assessment designed to measure the integrated learning it envisions. The document “Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards (5)” discusses ways in which the three-dimensional science learning described in the NGSS (namely, crosscutting concepts, science and engineering practices, and disciplinary core ideas) can be assessed. The existing traditional science assessment was not designed to capture the integration of three dimensions and this raised the need for the use of alternative assessment. However, the shift from traditional assessment in science education to the use of alternative assessment is a challenge for those teachers who do not have the requisite knowledge and the experience needed for this type of assessment.

Reform in the Final Evaluation in the Israeli Education System In 2010 a national reform was introduced to the Israeli education system. The Ministry of Education decided that 30% of the final grades in each of the subjects in the matriculation exam would be based on alternative assessment and that the remaining 70% of the grade will be based on the traditional national exams (6). The alternative assessment component was introduced by the Ministry of Education to enhance meaningful learning as opposed to surface learning, which may occur when “learning for a test”. In response to the reform, The chemistry chief inspector of the Israeli Ministry of Education in the Israeli Ministry of Education divided the curriculum into two distinct parts: 70% of the content will still be evaluated by the traditional external exam, and 30% of the curriculum will be evaluated by alternative assessment tools by each of the school teachers. Teachers had to implement the use of alternative assessment in the year that followed the statement from the Ministry of Education. This situation created the context for the development of professional development (PD) courses for teachers, which focused on alternative assessment, to support their attempts to foster the reform.

The Study The reform in the Israeli education system described above created a need for alternative assessment tools (and for knowledge regarding how to use them) among teachers in Israel. The current study focuses on high-school chemistry teachers in Israel. A professional development course for chemistry teachers was developed and implemented with three teachers’ groups during two academic years, 2015-2017. The course included theoretical parts regarding the rationale of alternative assessment, and building assessment rubric, and a practical part in which the teachers learned a module called “The Story of Lead (7)” and built an 42

exhibition about the module. The course is further described in Table 2 and in the course description section. Student-Curated Exhibitions The idea to include exhibits that students built as an alternative assessment tool came from a European project called Irresistible (8). In the Irresistible project, several European countries collaborated to address the need to link high-school science education to the EU’s call for educating the next generation of researchers to be aware of their responsibility for the environment and the society in which they operate. Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) represents a contemporary view of the connection between science and society (9). RRI entails a socially and ethically sensitive and inclusive process of science and technology, and in particular, influences academia and the industrial research and development sector to cultivate their practices and engage more deeply with the rest of society. The aim is to ensure that societal actors work together, mutually and responsibly, from the beginning to the end of the research and innovation process, and that both the processes and outcomes of research and innovation be aligned with the values, needs, and expectations of European societies. In the Irresistible project, which aimed to introduce RRI to science education at the school level, each country developed an inquiry-based teaching module. The modules were aimed at increasing content knowledge about research by introducing cutting-edge research topics and fostering a discussion among the students regarding RRI issues that are introduced. More details about the Irresistible project and its resulting 10 modules can be found at the project site (8) and in various publications about the project (10, 11). One of the unique features of the project is the final stage of the teaching modules, in which students create a student-curated exhibition (12). The learning outcome of each module culminates in an exhibition created by the class, consisting of several exhibits that the students prepare. Asking students to curate an exhibition on a scientific topic or on a socio-scientific issue is one way to move assessment from a product to a process (13). Kampschulte and Parchmann (12) developed a unique method to support students and teachers in curating exhibitions. They described the use of IKEA® shelves and a physical system that allows students to build their own professional-like exhibitions at school. They also discussed the skills that are needed to successfully build an exhibition. Importantly, they identified 25 applied skills that were specified in the Framework for 21st Century Learning (14, 15). These skills include working creatively with others, using system thinking, communicating clearly, being a self-directed learner, creating media products, managing projects, and guiding and leading others. Therefore, using the student-curated exhibition as an tool for alternative assessment can provide chemistry students with an opportunity to experience these skills, and the chemistry teachers with an opportunity to assess these meaningful skills in addition to the assessment of students’ knowledge. Linhares and Reis (13) described the stages in the process of curating an exhibition. In the first phase, the students are involved in in-depth learning and in researching the topic in order to decide on the subject of the exhibition. In this phase the students use a variety of 43

resources; they summarize what they have learned and analyze the information in order to answer a leading question that is the focus of the planned exhibition (16). When students explore a topic and decide on the name of their exhibition, they are ready for the second phase of designing the exhibition. The students go through 5 stages in which they transfer the knowledge they have gained into a physical exhibit (16). First, they have to select what kinds of objects will be used to relate the story of the exhibition and what methods will be used to display it. Then, they think of ways of making the exhibition relevant to visitors and how they can engage them in experiencing the exhibition. Next, they need to transform their ideas into real exhibits, namely, to choose the materials from which the exhibits will be built and organize the exhibit in the space in which it will be presented. Before the actual building of the exhibits, there is an opportunity for a formative assessment process, as suggested by Reis et al. (16): “After students have designed their exhibits, they can conduct formative evaluation to improve their designs using their plans. They can ask students from other exhibit teams, other students in the school, parents, or other adults to respond to their exhibit ideas…evaluation questions that might be useful during the formative evaluation process; (1) do they like it? 2) do they think it is fun?, (3) do they understand it?, (4) do they find it meaningful?, (5) does their understanding coincide with (or at least not contradict) the stated communication objectives for the element?, (6) does it give the user a sense of discovery, wonder or “wow”?” (Ref. (16), p. 14). The formative evaluation is an integral part of the learning; it is judged by evaluating the design of the exhibits. We therefore found much potential in harnessing the power of a student-curated exhibition for alternative assessment.

Methods Research Participants Forty-five chemistry teachers participated in three cohorts of a professional development course. Two cohorts took place during the second semester of the 2016-2017 academic year, and the third cohort was in a summer course. Different teachers participated in each course. The 28-hour courses dealt with alternative assessment in accordance with the reform in Israel (described in the introduction) and focused on building exhibitions for alternative assessment purposes. Research Goals In order to implement the use of an assessment tool that shifts the role of the teacher and changes the role of students’ evaluation, there is a need to work with teachers at different levels; this includes their knowledge as well their attitudes regarding the innovation. The research goal was to better understand teachers’ perspectives regarding the use of students’ exhibitions as an alternative assessment tool as well as to follow the learning of the teachers while they themselves experience the pedagogy of a student-curated exhibition as learners. We therefore examined teachers’ perspectives regarding student-curated exhibits 44

as an alternative assessment tool while providing them with an opportunity to experience it as learners. Research Tools •

•

The PMI (17) (plus, minus, and interesting) questionnaire was administered twice: The first was filled out after the teachers learned all the theoretical background. The second time was after the teachers built and presented their own exhibition (components g. and j. in Table 2). In the PMI questionnaire the teachers were asked to write the positive (Plus), negative (Minus), and the Interesting aspects of using a student-curated exhibition as an alternative assessment method. The final meeting in which the teachers presented the exhibition was recorded and transcribed (component j. in Table 2). In this discussion they explained their PMI.

Course Structure Table 2 presents the different components of the PD course. The first part of the PD course dealt with the principles of alternative assessment and the reform in the Israeli external evaluation in education. The Israeli chemistry curriculum was examined and the parts in the curriculum that should be evaluated by alternative assessment were highlighted. We continued with a comparison between alternative and traditional assessment, based on the criteria presented in Table 1. The comparison was followed by a discussion to deepen teachers’ knowledge about the essence of alternative assessment. Teachers need to realize the goals of assessment (5), and more specifically, the learning outcomes of their teaching, since there should be a clear connection between learning outcomes, teaching methods, and assessment. The general introduction about assessment goals created an opportunity to discuss the practice of assessment that is performed by every teacher. The next topic dealt with building the assessment rubric. Again, the categories of the rubric are tightly connected to the learning outcomes. We discussed issues related to the reliability of the rubric to ensure its quality (18). In order to provide the teachers with an authentic opportunity to learn how alternative assessment influenced the learners, we chose a topic that was unfamiliar to the teachers, but is still relevant to chemistry education. The second part of the course was dedicated to learning a new topic. We chose the topic “The Story of Lead (7)” to be presented in the exhibition curated by the teachers. Therefore, part of the PD was devoted to exposing the teachers to this lesson. This is a 4.5-hour lesson that consists of classroom activities that include a lesson about the chemical characteristics and properties of lead. This is followed by a short history of lead use by people (since the days of the Romans). The teachers were asked to watch an episode from Cosmos (Cosmos (19), episode 7, n.d.) that describes the story of Clair Peterson, who was a scientist that fought against leaded gasoline. The teachers identified ethical issues and concerns in this story and discussed the new content. Please note that in this chapter we use 45

the term ethical issues and not RRI dimensions, since we cannot provide here a comprehensive explanation of RRI within the scope of the chapter. However, it is important to mention that ethical issues are included in the RRI construct and do not represent its whole meaning. A more thorough description of RRI and the way it was implemented in “The Story of Lead” is provided in Blonder et al., 2016 (7).

Table 2. Components of the teachers’ PD course “A student-curated exhibition as an alternative assessment method” Part

Component

1. Introduction to alternative assessment

a) Alternative assessment reform and its integration into the Israeli chemistry curriculum b) Differences between traditional assessment and alternative assessment c) Principles of building and using a rubric for assessment

2. Learning “The Story of Lead” (7)

d) The history of lead and its influence on society from the Roman period to the modern era and ethical as well as RRI issues that are related to the story

3. An example of a student-curated exhibition as an alternative assessment tool

e) Science exhibition – principles (references are informal) f) Gaining experience by listening to a teacher who already used the student-curated exhibition in her chemistry class g) Filling in the pre-PMI (plus, minus, and interesting) questionnaire regarding the use of a student-curated exhibition as an alternative assessment tool h) Building exhibits for an exhibition called “The Story of Lead” i) Building the exhibition and preparing for the opening day j) Filling in the pre-PMI (plus, minus, and interesting) questionnaire regarding the use of a student-curated exhibition as an alternative assessment tool, followed by a group discussion.

The last part of the course focused on one of the alternative assessment tools: a student-curated exhibition. The teachers visited a science museum located in the Weizmann Institute of Science and were told to pay attention to characteristics of good exhibits in the museum. After the visit, we discussed different aspects of the exhibits that make them effective and interactive (based on the guidelines that were developed in the Irresistible project (16)). We met a teacher who used the student-curated exhibition in her class; she described how she experienced the

46

process with her students. The teachers decided on the general structure of the exhibition and divided the exhibition into several smaller exhibits. Then in small groups (2-3 teachers in a group) they planned the exhibits, according to the steps described above. Before they started to actually build the exhibits, the teachers received a suggested rubric for assessing the exhibits and discussed its categories (the rubric is presented in the Appendix). They continued to build the exhibits at home, and in the last meeting of the professional development course they completed the preparation and visitors were invited to the exhibition’s opening. The opening event of one of the exhibitions that was presented in front of other chemistry teachers is presented in Figure 1. At the end of this event, a reflective discussion regarding the use of student-curated exhibitions using the PMI template was conducted.

Results and Discussion The chemistry teachers who participated in the course were asked to describe the pros and cons of using the student-curated exhibition as an alternative assessment tool twice during the course. They filled out the PMI (plus, minus, and interesting) tool twice: once at stage g, and at stage j, Table 2, after they had presented their exhibition. Namely, once before they experienced the self-curating of the exhibit, and once afterwards. The teachers pointed out different advantages of using the unique alternative assessment of a student-curated exhibition, as presented in Table 3. We identified the positive and the negative aspects that were raised by the teachers before they experienced by themselves the whole process of curating an exhibition. They are presented in Tables 3 and 4. The teachers were concerned about different aspects related to the exhibition. Their first concern dealt with the quality of their students’ learning. They initially believed that using the exhibition as an alternative assessment tool will lead to superficial learning that will suit only the weak students in class. They were also concerned that the social aspects would not be suitable for students with low social skills and might create competition among the students in class (Table 4). However, these concerns were not mentioned after the teachers had built the exhibition during the course. They felt that curating the exhibits was a demanding assignment from which they had learned a lot and therefore, it had several advantages (Table 3) relating to promoting the learning of the gifted students as well as the weak students, and the requirement of students having a high degree of investment as well as students’ personal involvement. Two main concerns that remained after their experience are related to the time needed for the building process and the reliability of the assessment. A previous study that was conducted in Israel examined teachers’ use of alternative assessment (20). This study examined teachers’ and students’ attitudes regarding the use of alternative assessment tools and found that the teachers were concerned about the time-consuming aspect of alternative assessment compared with pen-and-pencil assessment. The teachers mentioned the following factors: team meetings, a lot of work with students and their assignments, and the heavy 47

responsibility associated with assessing students’ portfolios. The time issue was also mentioned in (12), which describes the limited time available at school as a great barrier for the initiation and development of student-curated exhibitions. They suggested several responses that promote the feasibility of the approach. Defining the goals of the exhibition and the intended audience at the beginning of the process helps the students to focus more on the target. In addition, good and clear time management prevents high pressure in completing the process, especially when it is accompanied by very organized management. They also developed a structural framework for presenting the exhibition based on IKEA® shelves. All these suggestions create a more organized process and support the feasibility of a student-curated exhibition within a school culture.

Table 3. Advantages of using a student-curated exhibition as an assessment tool, mentioned by the teachers* Advantages mentioned in the first PMI

Advantages that were added after teachers built an exhibition

Students can choose what to curate and this can raise their motivation to learn.

Transfers the responsibility for learning and for its evaluation to the students.

Students with different learning styles can be evaluated in their favorite style and can achieve a higher grade.

The teacher as well as the students learns.

Develops students’ creativity.

The teachers learn new characteristics about their students.

Strengthens students’ social skills among themselves and with the teacher.

Technology is very useful in the curation process. It supports efficient communication by the teams that build the exhibits.

Simulates real life in which you need to convey a message.

Increase the visibility of chemistry in school.

Stimulates interdisciplinary learning.

Requires a high level of student investment.

Promotes presentation skills and self-confidence.

Requires students’ personal involvement.

Encourages the weak students to learn.

Encourages the gifted students to learn.

Supports the development of thinking skills.

Ongoing formative assessment from the teacher, and additional assessment from the exhibition’s visitors.

Supports the development of a deep understanding of the subject.

Promotes learning for the exhibition’s visitors as well as the students who built it.

*

All the advantages mentioned in the first PMI were mentioned in the post PMI. Only the new ones were added to the table.

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Figure 1. Teachers who participated in the PD course present the exhibition “The Story of Lead” in the Annual Conference of the Israeli Chemistry Teachers. The exhibition includes interactive exhibits that reveal the chemical properties of lead, its use in everyday life, and dilemmas connected to the use of lead in different products and industries. Photographer: Shlomi Mizrahi Photography & Production.

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Table 4. Challenges of using a student-curated exhibition as an assessment tool, mentioned by the teachers after they learned the theory underlying this assessment tool and after they experienced it themselves by building an exhibition Challenges mentioned in the first PMI

Challenges that were mentioned after teachers experienced building an exhibition

Leads to superficial learning.

-

Suitable for only the weak students.

-

Might create competition among the students.

-

Is not suitable for students with low social skills.

-

Low reliability of the grade (not objective).

Low reliability of the grade (not objective enough).

The grade represents only a partial understanding and does not cover the whole topic.

-

Group work does not represent the knowledge of each of the students in the group.

Group work does not represent the knowledge of each of the students in the group.

Demands a lot of teaching time – a resource that is not available.

Demands a lot of teaching time – a resource that is not available.

Teachers can lose control of the class and the learning process.

-

Extra work for the teacher

Extra work for the teacher.

Requires expensive materials for building the exhibition.

-

Needs a suitable space to present the exhibition, which is not available in school.

-

However, some clear advantages were recognized in the current study, which were connected to the exhibition’s use as an alternative assessment tool. First, teachers realized the strong reciprocal connection between teaching-learning and assessment. A student-curated exhibition is not only an assessment tool—it is also an internal part of the learning process. The teachers realized that the big investment is not only for assessment—it is also devoted to students’ learning. In addition, an exhibition provides the means for assessing students’ knowledge as well as assessing a variety of skills (15). The extensive learning involved in the process of constructing the exhibition provides a natural environment for longitudinal assessment of the students’ knowledge. This assessment can be performed during the process by peers, by visitors at the exhibition, and by the teachers. The students have an opportunity to respond to the assessment and to 50

modify their exhibits during the process. The teachers reported that the exhibition strengthens students’ social skills among themselves and with the teacher and provides the teachers with an opportunity to become aware of different aspects of their students that they were not aware of previously. After they had experienced building the exhibition in the teachers’ course, the teachers learned new things about their teachers-peers and saw them in a different light. They recognized talents and qualities that they were not aware of in the chemistry class and realized that the same process could occur if this assessment approach is used with their own students. The issue of group work and the way teachers manage to control it was raised in (13) as the main concern of future teachers. In the current study the issue of group work raised concerns regarding the context of the reliability of the assessment. Teachers were concerned about their ability to assess separately each student in the group. This concern still bothered them after their experience in building the exhibition. The teachers were left with other queries they had raised that deal with the objectivity of student-curated exhibitions as an assessment tool. The self-experienced method and the use of rubrics (Appendix) did not provide them with answers to some of their questions regarding issues that are intrinsic to alternative assessment in general. Consequently, we provided the teachers with the option of keeping the discussion about alternative assessment, in general, and about student-curated exhibition, in particular, as an example of alternative assessment in our professional learning communities’ net, which is spread throughout Israel. The last part of the PMI tool relates to interesting ideas and open questions that the teachers still have after curating the exhibition. Even after participating in the course, teachers still had concerns regarding alternative assessment, as reflected from the following question that was raised: “Should I, as the teacher, trust the grade of my students, assessed from the exhibition, or should I conduct a test as well?” Even when the teachers realized the positive aspect of the student-curated exhibition as an alternative assessment tool, they still doubted its reliability and had greater trust in a traditional test. The other interesting items that the teachers wrote refer to practical questions they have, such as: Is any subject in chemistry suitable to be a subject for an exhibition, or does it have to be a chemistry-related subject that is connected to social dilemmas? Should I, as a teacher, divide the students into groups or let them choose their own work-group? Is it better to have the exhibition with younger students (ages 15-16) or with senior students (ages 17-18)?

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Who should be the intended audience for the exhibition? Parents, other teachers in the school, other students in the school, the school principal, or the Minister of Education? These questions indicate that teachers think about implementing this approach in their class and consider the pedagogical aspects (e.g., the age of the students, how to divide students into working groups), as well as organizational aspects that are important to successfully launch an exhibition in school (e.g., who to invite to the exhibition). Teachers think about subjects in the chemistry curriculum that can be used for the exhibition and are interesting in knowing whether only subjects dealing with socio-scientific aspects like “The Story of Lead” are suitable. These questions show that they are thinking of implementing the student-curated exhibition as an assessment tool with their students.

Conclusions Assessment in chemistry education is important in order to promote chemistry teaching and learning. Educational reforms that are not reflected in a change in the assessment will not influence the reality in schools (1, 4, 21). In the current reform of the education system in Israel, it was decided that 30% of the final grades in each of the subjects in the matriculation exams will be based on alternative assessment (6). Thus, the direction of the influence was reversed. The demand to use alternative assessment led the teachers to take a PD course about alternative assessment and to deepen their knowledge of assessment. When teachers had the opportunity to experience by themselves the alternative assessment of a student-curated exhibition, they realized the positive influence of alternative assessment in the learning process. They also dealt with common misbeliefs about alternative assessment (e.g., it is for the low-achieving students, it leads to superficial learning). The time-consuming nature of alternative assessment, such as a student-curated exhibition compared to using a traditional test is still a serious concern. However, when teachers realize that the time involved includes learning as well as assessing, this concern might be lessened. The student-curated exhibition as an alternative assessment method was not the only method that was used by chemistry teachers during the years of research. For example, teachers used “Trivia games” that were created by students to assess their knowledge in an alternative way. The students create a trivia game according to specific criteria from the teacher. The game can be carried out as a card game or using an on-line platform (like Kahoot (22)!). The students also submit their answers to the trivia questions to their teachers. In the last stage of the evaluation process the students conduct the trivia game activities in class. The criteria given by the teachers can encourage students to refer to different important aspects that are needed to be evaluated, for example, to different levels of chemistry understanding (23–25) (the macro, the micro, and the symbol) to ensure full coverage of the learned topic.

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Acknowledgments The Irresistible project received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 612367. The course was given in two frameworks: 1) As part of the Rothschild-Weizmann program for Excellence in Science Teaching and was supported by the Rothschild-Caesarea Foundation. 2) In the framework of the National Chemistry Teachers’ Center and was supported by the Ministry of Education (Tender: 09.07.13).

Appendix Table A1. Rubric for evaluating student exhibits Category

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

1. Introduction of Exhibit Topic

The exhibit topic is not well defined.

The exhibit topic is well defined but not attractive.

The exhibit topic is well defined and attractive.

2. Presentation of a Balanced Dilemma

The exhibit presents only one point of view. There is no dilemma.

The exhibit presents two points of view, but not in a balanced way.

The exhibit presents two points of view in a balanced way.

3. Presentation of Thesis (optional)

The thesis is not well defined.

The thesis is well defined but not well supported.

The thesis is well defined and well supported.

4. Scientific Background

No basic science concepts are presented.

Only some basic science concepts are presented.

All the basic science concepts are presented.

5. RRI (SocioScientific aspects)

There is no mention of RRI.

RRI is weakly connected to the exhibit.

RRI is strongly connected to the exhibit.

6. Organization

The exhibit is not organized at all.

The exhibit is partially organized but is not easy to follow.

The exhibit is well organized and easy to follow.

7. Creativity of the exhibit

Non-creative (e.g., a regular poster).

Some creativity, at least one non-ordinary aspect in the exhibit

Highly creative and original

8. Presentation

Little thought is given to the selection of color, format, and representations of knowledge, which help convey the exhibit’s message.

Some thought is given to the selection of color, format, and representations of knowledge, which help convey the exhibit’s message.

Much thought is given to the selection of color, format, and representations of knowledge, which help convey the exhibit’s message. Continued on next page.

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Table A1. (Continued). Rubric for evaluating student exhibits Category

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

9. Group Work

Only a few members work.

All the members work, but not cooperatively.

All the members work with full cooperation.

10. Feedback and Revisions

There is no exhibit feedback by visitors. There are no revisions of the exhibit.

There is exhibit feedback by visitors but it is not used in the revisions of the exhibit.

There is exhibit feedback by visitors and it is used in the revisions of the exhibit.

References 1. 2.

3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Birenbaum, M. Alternatives in Assessment; Ramot Tel Aviv University: (Hebrew), Tel Aviv, 1997. Herman, J. L.; Aschbacher, P. R.; Winters, L. A Practical Guide to Alternative Assessment; Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria, VA, 1992. O’Neil, H. F.; Abedi, J. Journal of Educational Research 1996, 89, 234–245. National Research Council. Standards for Proffesional Development; National Academy Press: Washington, DC, 1996; pp 55−73. Developing Assessments for the Next Generation Science Standards; Committee on Developing Assessments of Science Proficiency in K-12, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, The National Academies Press: Washington, DC, 2014. Israeli Ministry of Education, 2010. http://cms.education.gov.il/Education CMS/Units/LemidaMashmautit/mashmautit/ (accessed 14.2.2018). Blonder, R.; Zemler, E.; Rosenfeld, S. Chemistry Education Research and Practice 2016, 17, 1145–1155. Irresistible, 2016. http://www.irresistible-project.eu/index.php/nl/ (accessed 14.2.2018). Schomberg, V.; Von Schomberg, R. In Responsible Innovation; Owen, R., Heintz, M., Bessant, J., Eds.; John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.: London, 2013; pp 51−74. Apotheker, J.; Blonder, R.; Akaygun, S.; Reis, P.; Kampschulte, L.; Laherto, A. Pure and Applied Chemistry 2017, 89, 211. Adadan, E.; Akaygun, S.; Sanyal, A. Science Activities: Classroom Projects and Curriculum Ideas 2017, 54, 86–95. Kampschulte, L.; Parchmann, I. LUMAT 2015, 3, 462–482. Linhares, E. F.; Reis, P. Sisyphus Journal of Education 2017, 5, 85–106. Partnership for 21st Century Learning, 2009. http://www.p21.org/storage/ documents/P21_Framework_Definitions.pdf (accessed 14.2.2018) Partnership for 21st Century Learning, 2011. http://www.p21.org/storage/ documents/1.__p21_framework_2-pager.pdf (accessed 14.2.2018). Reis, P., Marques, A. R., Azinhaga, P., 2016. 54

17. de Bono, E. In Thinking Skills instruction: Concepts and Techniques; Heiman, M., Slomianko, J., Eds.; National Education Association Publication: Washington, DC, 1987; pp 2017−2229. 18. Birenbaum, M.; Nasser, F.; Tatsuoka, C. International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology 2007, 38, 301–319. 19. Cosmos A Spacetime Odyssey - Episode 7. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=dyNRQOpLdu8 (accessed 14.2.2018). 20. Hofstein, A.; Mamlok, R.; Rosenberg, O. In Assessment in Science; McMahon, M., Simmons, P., Sommers, R., DeBaets, D., Crawley, F., Eds.; NSTA Press: Arlington, VA, 2006; pp 139−148. 21. Hofstein, A.; Levi-Nahum, T.; Shore, R. Learning Environments Research 2001, 4, 193–207. 22. Kahoot! https://kahoot.com (accessed 14.2.2018). 23. De Jong, O.; Blonder, R.; Oversby, J. P. In Chemistry Education: A Practical Guide and Textbook for Teachers, Teacher Trainees and Student Teachers; Eilks, I., Hofstein, A., Eds.; Sense: Rotterdam, 2013; pp 97−126. 24. Dori, Y. J.; Hameiri, M. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 2003, 40, 278–302. 25. Johnstone, A. H. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 1991, 7, 75–83.

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Chapter 5

Metacognitive Foundations in Higher Education Chemistry F. Arslantas,1 E. Wood,1 and S. MacNeil*,2 1Department

of Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5 2Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5 *E-mail: [email protected].

For most students the acquisition of the skills and knowledge required in higher education chemistry contexts is an active and challenging task. Designing curriculum to best support learners is also challenging for instructors. A growing body of literature examines the role and impact of instructional interventions designed to encourage awareness and development of metacognitive skills as a learning support in chemistry courses. Metacognition is not the same as intelligence or domain knowledge. Instead, it refers to the cognitive underpinnings that support a student’s knowledge and control of learning. Despite the significant attention metacognition has received in the psychological and educational literature, it remains a term with which few university students and instructors are familiar. Thus, a growing body of literature has evolved to understand metacognition in chemistry learning contexts. This chapter highlights original research in which metacognition and chemistry were both a major focus, summarizing how metacognition has been taught and assessed and noting cases in which improvements in metacognition and/or performance have been reported. Through this collection of articles, a positive relationship between metacognition and performance is established. However, gaps in the extant research are uncovered and important future directions are highlighted and discussed. In particular, there is a need for (i) more explicit teaching of metacognition, (ii) increased use of multiple and © 2018 American Chemical Society

concurrent methods for assessment of metacognition, (iii) more implementations of interventions in general as well as longitudinal studies and those examining senior years of chemistry study, (iv) greater efforts to establish the link between metacognition and performance, and (v) greater efforts to bring results of this research into the higher education chemistry classroom.

Introduction Learning is an active and challenging task for both students and instructors. For students taking chemistry in higher education contexts, learning expectations range from simple acquisition of new terminology, to comprehension and application of new concepts and methodological skills. Equally challenging is the task for instructors who must design, plan and execute lessons and experiences for students of diverse skills, knowledge and ability. The fields of psychology and education offer insights regarding how to make the task of learning easier for students. In particular, significant research in these two domains identifies the importance of supporting students’ development and utilization of metacognitive skills as a means for maximizing learning, especially in higher education contexts (1–5). Educators can play an important role by providing students with instructional opportunities that develop and scaffold metacognitive awareness and skills (6, 7). The following chapter first draws upon theoretical and applied work from psychology and education to introduce the importance of metacognitive training as a means to facilitate student learning in higher education contexts. The chapter then identifies and summarizes the key literature that addresses metacognitive training and the impact of metacognition in the domain of chemistry.

What Is Metacognition and Why Is It Important? Metacognition is a higher-order cognitive skill that encompasses all the mental actions and processes involved when we are thinking about thinking (7, 8). In other words, we use metacognitive skills to understand how to approach the learning task, e.g., assigning R/S configurations to chirality centers in a molecule. This includes considering the optimal environment in which to learn, e.g., “Am I paying attention?”, assessing current knowledge/skills related to the task, e.g., “Do I know the term ‘chirality’?”, “What can I remember about it?”, and drawing upon strategies to facilitate learning, e.g., using imagery of a left and right hand to understand the concept of nonsuperposable mirror images. Learners must also understand the reasons and processes behind the performance of the task, e.g., “How do I identify a chirality center?”, “What are the Cahn-Ingold-Prelog rules?”, “Why is this important?”. The scope of metacognition is vast. It permits us to assess, coordinate and apply our cognitions. Interestingly, this aspect of cognition develops later in childhood and is not necessarily spontaneously elicited 58

even by advanced learners, such as university level students (1–4). Thus there is a need to teach and encourage metacognition skills to maximize learning. Metacognition is typically described in terms of two overarching components: knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition (5, 7). Knowledge of cognition refers to what you personally know about how you think and what you understand about how thinking occurs in people in general. Knowledge of cognition consists of three secondary subcomponents: declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge. Declarative knowledge (knowing ‘what’) involves knowing about one’s own learning and factors affecting it. Procedural knowledge (knowing ‘how’) is knowing the methods or procedures to address tasks, e.g., strategies like chunking, categorization, elaboration, and imagery. Conditional knowledge (knowing ‘when’) refers to the ability to use the correct knowledge and strategies in the correct context. Regulation of cognition refers to the ability to exert attention and control to regulate cognition (5, 7). Regulation of cognition includes three secondary subcomponents or skills: planning, monitoring, and evaluation. Planning occurs at the onset of a task during which the learner foresees the demands of the task and decides which strategies, e.g., summarize main points of text, and resources, e.g., attention and textbook, are most suitable and necessary for the task at hand. Monitoring is done while performing the task. It involves regularly checking one’s understanding of the task and whether one’s performance is meeting the requirements of the task. Evaluating can occur during or at the end of performing a task. Evaluating involves assessing the quality of one’s performance in terms of goal achievement. Learning and metacognition share a reciprocal relationship. Specifically, effective and efficient learning requires metacognitive skills. However, the act of learning, which involves planning, execution of strategies, and monitoring provides an opportunity to practice and enhance metacognitive skills (1–7). Using metacognitive skills to learn can benefit processing speed, i.e., the rate at which learners attend to, perceive, understand, change, use and store information; automaticity, i.e., effortless and efficient processing, facilitating easy access to acquired knowledge (9); building a repertoire of strategies, effective use of strategies, allocation of resources, learning, and performance. Individuals high in metacognition not only have large and varied strategic repertoires but they execute strategies fluently and automatically as required by the situation (5). Greater proficiency in each of these skills positively impacts learning. How Do You Teach Metacognition? The term ‘metacognition’ is not commonly known among students, even at the university level (7). Thus, the first step in teaching metacognitive skills involves introducing students to the concept of metacognition as well as its importance for learning and performance. Metacognitive awareness instruction should include: explicit instruction, modelling, integration of metacognitive skills with course content, and opportunities for practice and reflection (5, 10). Explicit instruction means providing students with a clear definition of metacognition, how it develops, how it can be enhanced, and why it is important in an academic context. This should be introduced early in a course. Introduction 59

to the concept of metacognition should accompany domain-specific, e.g., terminology, and domain-general, e.g., critical thinking skills throughout a course. Instructors can scaffold metacognitive awareness and skills by identifying and modelling use of metacognition while teaching regular course content. Specifically, instructors should verbalize metacognitive behaviors and skills to demonstrate completion of a task. For example, “What is a chirality center? It is a carbon, or other atom, bonded to four different substituents. At this particular carbon, how do I prioritize the substituents? By applying the Cahn-Ingold-Prelog rules. Am I viewing the chirality center from the correct angle, that is, is the lowest priority substituent pointing away from me? If not, what must I do? I must redraw the structure, mentally manipulate it, build a molecular model…etc.” As learners gain more knowledge and familiarity with the concept of metacognition, they should be provided with frequent opportunities to practice using metacognitive skills, ideally through the use of ‘just in time teaching’. For example, asking students to answer introductory, exploratory, thought and discussion provoking questions prior to class promotes reflection regarding what is and is not known as well as monitoring of comprehension and performance as students are learning (6, 10). Other instructional supports include the use of regulatory checklists, which use questions to assist the development of planning, and summarizing strategies. These checklists prompt students to evaluate their knowledge and the effectiveness and efficiency of the strategies used (5). A stop, think, and act method is particularly useful for promoting metacognitive awareness (5). The first step in this process is to gather or recollect information about one’s own learning process, e.g., general strategy use behaviors, and one’s cognitive resources, e.g., knowing how, when, and why to use a repertoire of strategies, before beginning a task. The next step is to select task appropriate strategies, e.g., skim, diagrams, etc., and make a plan (time, resources) to meet the demands of the task. The third step is comprehension and performance monitoring during task performance, e.g., “Do I have a clear understanding of what I am doing?”. The final step is to assess the learning and performance outcomes of the completed task, e.g., “Have I reached my goal?”. Repetition of this process provides the practice needed for learners to employ metacognitive skills more automatically and to generalize metacognitive awareness and skills to other tasks and domains. How Is Metacognition Assessed? Assessments of metacognition include three commonly used methods: (1) self-report measures; (2) pre- and post-dictions; and (3) concurrent instruments including think-aloud protocols (11) and on-line tracking (12). Self-report measures assess students’ overall metacognitive skills based on student reports of type and frequency of strategies used and are often employed as pre-/post-tests to measure changes in reported metacognitive strategy use. Self-report measures include multiple choice, e.g., Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI) (13), or true/false, e.g., Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) (5) questionnaires, or open-ended questions, e.g., Knowledge of Developing Cognitive Knowledge (KDCK) (8, 14). 60

Pre- and post-dictions include ease-of-learning (EOL) judgments, judgments of learning (JOL), and feeling-of-knowing (FOK) judgments (15). Pre- and postdiction measures involve asking participants to predict their performance before or during a task or to estimate their performance following completion of a task. The difference between performance pre-/postdictions and actual performance is the index of metacognitive awareness. Beware students often are overly optimistic when they provide this evaluation. This is referred to as the Dunning-Kruger effect (16). Think-aloud protocols involve the participants reciting their thoughts while or soon after performing a task. It is also possible to record participants while performing the given task and later ask them to watch the video of themselves and verbalize their thoughts about what they were doing. Interactive MultiMedia Exercises (IMMEX) is a software program that tracks participants’ actions online while they are performing an online task by keeping a log of participants’ item selections, selection order, and selection times. Information from think-aloud protocols or IMMEX can then be collated and analyzed in a dataset to assess use of metacognitive strategies during task completion. Given that metacognitive skills can be discipline- and, in fact, task specific (17), concurrent instruments for assessing metacognition are generally preferred to asynchronous methods that tend to assess more general metacognitive skills.

Metacognition in Higher Education Science Although metacognition has been studied extensively in psychological research, a key contribution for the present chapter is to summarize the current state of metacognition studies in higher education chemistry courses. How has metacognition been taught? How has metacognition been assessed? What interventions have been implemented? What claims have been made? Which courses have been examined and where are the gaps in knowledge that highlight opportunities for further research? For context, consider the number of reported studies on metacognition in higher education science over the last 6 decades. A search of Google Scholar using the key words “metacognition AND higher education AND science” provided the results depicted in Figure 1. As illustrated in Figure 1, there has been a growing interest in the role of metacognition in higher education science, including a review covering work from 2000-2012 (18). But questions remain---what has been done in chemistry and what have we learned? To address these questions, we conducted a review of existing research. The remainder of this chapter summarizes our findings.

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Figure 1. Results for Google Scholar search of “metacognition AND higher education AND science” for the years 1960-present.

Summary of Methods Used To Locate Relevant Research Three databases were used to search for metacognition studies in higher education chemistry courses reported up to April 11, 2017: ERIC, PsychINFO and SciFinder. ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) is a database that provides access to publications in the field of education. PsychINFO is a database that can be used to search for works published since 1806 in psychology and other disciplines, e.g., medicine and law. SciFinder is a database that can be used to search for chemistry related articles published since 1967. The initial search command entered into all four databases was “metacognition” without any limits on location of appearance, e.g., abstract, document text, document title, etc, or date range. Next, a search within the generated results lists was conducted for “chemistry”. The results were then restricted to peer-reviewed work only (because there was not a peer-reviewed option on SciFinder, the results were limited to book, journal, or review), then to English only. Duplicate items identified across the four databases were eliminated. In total, there were 108 unique results. Figure 2 illustrates that there has been a growing interest in the role of metacognition in higher education chemistry, particularly since 2010. The results of the search were then further refined within metacognition research studies in higher education chemistry using the following inclusion criteria: • • • •

metacognition the/a focus, chemistry the/a focus, higher education, student sample, 62

• •

research study, access to full article.

Of the 108 unique results, only 31 publications met the inclusion criteria (19–49). See Table 1 in the Appendix for details regarding study exclusions.

Figure 2. Publications by year for “metacognition AND chemistry” searches of ERIC, PsychInfo and SciFinder restricted to peer-reviewed papers (book, journal or review for SciFinder) written in English.

Discussion Explicit Instruction in Metacognition As previously noted, metacognitive awareness instruction should include: explicit instruction, modelling and integration of metacognitive skills with course content, and opportunities for practice and reflection (5, 10). Of the 31 articles meeting the inclusion criteria, only 2 provided details for explicit metacognitive awareness instruction. In 2 related studies, Cook and colleagues (38, 43) devoted entire lectures to information about learning strategies, introducing students to metacognition and offering students a set of metacognitive learning tools to replace or supplement ineffective strategies used in high school. For example, students were encouraged to use a study cycle which encompasses an iterative process of previewing material before class, attending class, reviewing material immediately after class, then studying and assessing learning. In 3 additional articles, students were trained in particular metacognitive strategies, e.g., flow diagrams and the competency tripod model (21) or student outcomes, concept mapping, and study strategies diaries (40). The competency tripod model is an analogy linking declarative knowledge, communicative competence and procedural knowledge. However, there was no mention of explicit instruction 63

regarding metacognition in general in any of these three articles. Although attempts to create social environments to support reflective discourse (31) and reinforce awareness of metacognition near the end of a course (28) were noted, the remaining articles did not provide details on explicit attempts to introduce students to metacognition and explain its importance to learning. Assessing Metacognition Metacognition is typically assessed using (i) self-report measures, i.e., student surveys, interviews and written reflections, for which students report the type and frequency, or investigators score for the presence and quality, of metacognitive strategies employed; (ii) pre- or postdictions of learning or knowing, where the accuracy of a student’s pre- or postdiction is believed to be related to their metacognitive skills; and (iii) assessments concurrent with problem-solving activities, e.g., think-aloud protocols or on-line tracking, where strategies employed are documented in real time during a task. Among the 31 articles meeting criteria, 27 assessed metacognition in one or more ways (see Table 2 in the Appendix for a summary). The most common method employed to assess metacognition was self-report measures. Nineteen articles utilized self-report measures, with 15 of these relying solely on self-report measures as an assessment of metacognition. Only 7 of the 31 articles used pre- and postdiction accuracy as a measure of metacognitive skills, with 6 of these 7 studies relying solely on these measures for analysis. Likewise, only 6 of the 31 articles utilized concurrent methods of direct observation, including think-aloud protocols, and on-line tracking via IMMEX. However, only 2 of these studies relied solely on these methods for analysis. Interestingly, only 4 articles made use of multiple modes of assessment. The remaining 4 articles make no mention of an attempt to assess metacognition as part of the study. Interventions To Improve Metacognition As noted above, to improve students current metacognitive skills and maximize use within a course, students, even at the university level, need to be introduced to the concept early in a course and they must be exposed to teaching methods and/or learning strategies that promote metacognition with ample opportunities to practice metacognition skills and behaviors. For this reason, a significant portion of the research highlighted in this chapter has focused on the use of interventions to improve students’ metacognition. Surprisingly, only 17 of the 31 studies reported interventions aimed to prompt and improve students’ metacognitive behaviors (see Table 2 in the Appendix for a summary). Although the interventions varied considerably across studies, the types of interventions could be grouped according to four broad categories: explicit instruction, comparing teaching methods, introducing student activities and using prompts. Consistent with the need to provide explicit instruction and learning strategies, two of the studies used lecture-based information sessions to introduce the concept of metacognition accompanied by provision of metacognitive learning 64

tools, e.g., a study cycle (38, 43). A third study examined students’ confidence judgments prior to and after learning about one particular chemistry topic (stoichiometry) to determine how exposure to the information changes students’ confidence judgements (42). Seven articles described interventions based on comparison or implementation of various teaching methods in the classroom and in lab contexts. Of these, one study compared cooperative learning and classroom discussions to typical lectures for their effect on general chemistry students’ metacognitive processes (19). Although most studies involved typical university students, one additional study involved student teachers who were exposed to problem-based learning to assess its effects on metacognitive awareness (33). The majority of these studies examined the impact of teaching interventions in lab contexts. Five studies focused on the effects of cooperative/collaborative project- and problem-based labs (26, 28, 31) and the level of inquiry in labs (37, 45) on students’ metacognition. Four articles describe interventions that use a variety of student activities to improve students’ metacognitive skills. Activities varied across studies but included problem manipulation, in which students actively assessed the skills and knowledge used to answer a chemical problem and then manipulated the problem to create a new one (30); journal writing, where students described their understanding of a topic, the development of that understanding, and how the topic connected to their lives (32); and weeklong daily diaries which were coded for 14 self-regulated learning strategies (40). In the lab, the competency tripod model was used in conjunction with flow diagrams to effect changes in students’ metacognitive practices (21). Finally, four articles used interventions based on metacognitive prompts and feedback manipulation. Of these studies, one used reflection forms to elicit expectations and beliefs about the course, experiments and related scientific topics, accompanied by questions querying the implications of lab experiments to daily life (34). Another study varied three forms of weekly quiz feedback to examine the impact on students’ self-reported use of metacognitive strategies (39): mastery-approach, performance-approach, and a combined mastery/performance-approach. The mastery-approach focused on competence and task mastery while the performance-approach focused on aptitude and favorable judgments. One study asked students to list the top three reasons for their success, or lack thereof, on a recent test (43). One study used scaffolding questions to assist students in monitoring, diagnosing and, if possible, repairing areas of difficulty in an on-line homework environment that provided students with metacognitive data but did not otherwise instruct students on how to use that data (49). Claims of Improved Metacognition An instructor who is teaching students about metacognition, introducing students to teaching methods or learning strategies that promote metacognition, or simply measuring students’ metacognition is hoping to observe a change. Improvement in students’ metacognition in response to an instructional 65

intervention or perhaps just over time as a result of regular course instruction is the goal. This may be observed through changes in students’ responses to self-report questionnaires, changes in students’ pre-/postdiction accuracies in judging preparation for or performance in completing a task or test, or changes in the use of metacognitive strategies observed or measured concurrently during completion of a task. Results were mixed with respect to improvements in metacognition for the 31 articles included in this chapter (see Table 2 in the Appendix for a summary). Interestingly, despite metacognition being identified as a main focus in each of the articles, almost half, i.e., 15 out of 31, of them did not provide any information regarding changes in metacognition over time or as a result of a specific intervention. For 8 of the 15 articles, metacognition was measured on one day only and no interventions were implemented to seek an improvement; for 5 of the 15, no formal measurement of metacognition was utilized; for 2 of the 15 articles, although metacognition was measured across a term, changes in metacognition were not addressed. Among the remaining 16 articles, those that did not describe an explicit attempt to teach metacognition or to provide interventions to improve metacognition (20, 23, 29, 41, 48) generally reported no improvements in metacognition. One exception reported an overall increase in general chemistry students’ self-reported use of metacognitive strategies across a term, but this may have demonstrated a behavioral change or merely a change in perceptions prompted by the surveys themselves (20). In contrast, one article, focused on design and validation of an instrument to assess metacognitive skillfulness in chemistry, reported that scores were not significantly different for two administrations of the instrument 13 weeks apart (23). All articles reporting indirect metacognitive measures based on test grade pre- and postdiction accuracies (29, 48) and estimates of ability in chemistry (41) consistently showed persistent, and sometimes worsening, Dunning-Kruger effects which imply no improvements in students’ metacognition over 1-2 terms of instruction. The Dunning-Kruger effect is demonstrated in an academic environment when ill-prepared or low-performing students overestimate their level of preparation or performance. Another article reported that even after direct instruction in a particular topic (stoichiometry), students’ inaccuracies in estimates of their own ability in chemistry persisted, with the majority of students over-estimating their ability (42). Failure to see improvement across these studies suggests that these types of measures on their own are not sufficient to enhance students’ metacognition. Instead, employing these types of interventions may require additional support such as explicit instruction to make clear the connection between the measures and metacognition skills such as monitoring. Alternatively, students may require interventions that directly promote reflection, monitoring or other metacognitive strategies to encourage metacognitive behaviors. The remaining 10 articles each made claims, albeit with varying degrees of substantiation, of improvements in students’ metacognition owing to a specific intervention (see Table 2 in the Appendix for a summary). Four of these articles described improved metacognition of an experimental treatment compared to a control. Another 3 articles report improvements in students’ metacognition from 66

pre- to post-intervention but use no control for comparison. The remaining 3 articles make claims that are speculative at best.

Articles with Controls Within the extant literature, exposure to metacognitive prompts has been shown to have positive effects on students’ self-reported use of metacognitive strategies. One article in the present review demonstrated that pre-service science teachers in a first-year chemistry lab course outperformed a control group on self-reported metacognitive learning strategies after completing reflection forms, analyzing and explaining daily life implications of lab experiments and answering metacognitive questions throughout the instructional process (34). A second article showed that prompting students on weekly quizzes with different types of feedback designed to induce different types of achievement goals – mastery (focus on competence and task mastery) versus performance (focus on aptitude and favorable judgments) versus combined mastery/performance – resulted in lower levels of self-reported metacognitive strategy use among control students and those receiving performance feedback, but no significant change for students receiving mastery or combined mastery/performance feedback (39). Thus, differential feedback appears to be related to losses in metacognition but the different forms of feedback did not enhance metacognition. Four articles utilizing control groups claimed improved metacognition in students exposed to various teaching methods in the lab. Two articles revealed, through interviews and analysis of students’ lab reports, that guided lab experiments, requiring more inquiry than structured or verification labs, resulted in an increased focus on metacognitive knowledge and led to increases in self-reported use of metacognitive strategies (37, 45). Interestingly, two other articles, combining qualitative and quantitative data from the same study, made the claim that decreases in self-reported use of metacognition for students subjected to a collaborative work session in the lab suggested improved awareness of metacognition compared to students not subjected to this treatment. However, concurrent measurement of regulatory metacognitive skills via IMMEX showed no differences between the groups (26, 28).

Articles with No Controls In one study, general chemistry students exposed to a series of metacognitive scaffolds including an in-class test review with a metacognitive activity, a separate lecture devoted entirely to introduction of metacognition and metacognitive strategies, and frequent reminders to metacognitively monitor their learning strategies before each test, self-reported increased use of effective learning strategies on a 12-item Effective Learning Strategies Survey. However, significant increases only occurred for 3 of the 12 items on the survey, and validity and reliability of the survey were not confirmed (43). In another study, teacher education students enrolled in a general chemistry course were subjected to six 67

problem-based learning (PBL) scenarios limited to solution concepts in chemistry. Self-reports pre- and post-intervention revealed that PBL was effective at improving metacognitive skills but only for students with no science background (33). A third article demonstrated improvements in metacognitive strategy use, assessed concurrently using IMMEX, for general chemistry students performing project-based laboratory experiments cooperatively in small groups (31). For the final 3 articles, improvements in metacognition based on an intervention were implied but supporting data was limited. In one article, general chemistry students were exposed to four different teaching methods – cooperative learning, class discussions, concept maps, and lectures – then asked to complete a survey regarding intended purposes of each teaching method. Although student responses revealed no differences among methods in aiding metacognitive processes, the authors claimed that their data support the idea that multiple modes of learning foster metacognitive skills (19). In another article, students were taught using a problem manipulation model of chemistry instruction, in which students were required to change or manipulate a problem in order to test their own understanding of the underlying concept. Although no measures of metacognition were used in this study, the authors suggested that the problem manipulation model provided an opportunity for students to practice and develop metacognitive skills (30). Finally, in an article describing flow diagrams and the competency tripod model as sources for enabling students’ metacognition in the chemistry laboratory, a tentative claim of improved metacognition was made. Specifically, the authors state that “It is not possible to establish directly if the competency tripod model was responsible for enabling metacognition in students but like dropping a pebble into a pond, its introduction certainly provided ripples which could be identified as metacognition (21).” Claims of Improved Performance The ultimate goal in attempting to improve students’ metacognitive skills is to improve their overall academic performance. Of the 31 articles meeting inclusion criteria, 5 made no mention of a link between metacognition and performance, 5 described studies in which no improvements in performance were observed despite varying claims of improved metacognition, 19 made claims of a positive link between metacognition and performance, and 2 presented mixed results (see Table 2 in the Appendix for a summary).

No Improvements in Performance Among the 5 articles where no improvements in performance were observed despite varying claims of improved metacognition, interventions included comparisons among teaching methods, using prompts and introducing student activities. Specifically, students provided a problem manipulation model of chemistry instruction, touted to offer an opportunity for students to practice and develop metacognitive skills, showed no improvements in final exam scores compared to students who had not been subjected to the problem manipulation 68

model (30). Similarly, guided lab experiments which required more inquiry than structured or verification labs led to increases in students’ self-reported use of metacognitive strategies but did not result in an increase in reflections on conceptual knowledge (37) or increased scores on a standardized final exam from the American Chemical Society (45) when compared to outcomes in structured or verification labs. In a test feedback manipulation study, students provided feedback designed to induce a mastery goal orientation also reported higher use of metacognitive strategies. However, these students achieved lower course grades than students induced to adopt a performance goal orientation (39). Finally, in an article that provided students with various activities meant to improve metacognitive skills – daily diaries, problem sets and concept maps –, none of the activities showed a link to any performance outcomes in the course (40).

Improvements in Performance Of the 19 articles that reported a positive relationship between metacognition and performance, 16 could be grouped into one of three categories. These categories are organized not by intervention but by the common measures that are used to link metacognition to performance: (1) pre- and postdiction accuracy measures compared to course grades; (2) concurrent metacognitive strategy use compared to ability, via IMMEX; and (3) self-reported metacognitive skills compared to various performance measures, mostly grades. While ill-prepared or low-performing students overestimate their level of preparation or performance consistent with the Dunning-Kruger effect, well-prepared or high-performing students are much more accurate in their self-assessments and often underestimate their level of preparation or performance. The discrepancy between perception and reality for the ill-prepared or low achieving students is suggested to result from inferior metacognitive skills. Six articles meeting inclusion criteria indirectly link superior metacognition to superior performance via persistent Dunning-Kruger effects in students’ self-evaluation of preparation or performance (24, 29, 41, 42, 47, 48). This collection of articles implies that metacognitive ability, reflected in accuracy of self-evaluation, is a requirement for academic success. However, one study involving question-level predictions of knowledge for upcoming tests also showed mixed findings. Specifically, the general Dunning-Kruger effect was observed when students were grouped into thirds based on overall final exam scores, but an interaction effect between a student’s question-level prediction and their ability level was not significant, suggesting no difference in ability to judge right/wrong answers between students performing well and those not performing well on the final exam (46). This result appears to refute the notion that metacognitive ability is necessary for academic success but more likely reflects the complicated nature of metacognition and the difficulties in accurately measuring it. Interactive MultiMedia Exercises (IMMEX) is a software program that tracks participants’ actions online while they are performing an online task. Two assessment parameters are produced: the strategy state, which is related to the metacognitive quality of the solution path employed, and the ability 69

which is a measure of the problem difficulty students can properly handle (22). Three articles employing IMMEX as a concurrent measure of metacognition consistently showed that students scoring higher in strategy state also scored higher in ability (22, 28, 31). However, in one of these studies, mixed results were found. Although the correlation between strategy state and ability was observed in general, the treatment group, exposed to a collaborative activity in the lab, showed no difference in strategy state and actually displayed a decrease in self-reported metacognitive strategies compared to the control group (28). As mentioned previously, the most common method employed to assess metacognition was self-report measures in which students are asked to report on type and frequency of strategies used. Eight articles meeting inclusion criteria demonstrated a positive relationship between students’ self-reports of metacognitive strategy use and academic performance. Measures most often included grades (20, 23, 32, 36, 44), but also more general performance measures such as self-efficacy (concurrent with reduced anxiety) (27), science process skills and conceptual knowledge (34), or critical thinking (35). Among the remaining three articles, two identified the benefits to students’ performance of providing explicit instruction through attending a lecture dedicated to the introduction of metacognition and metacognitive strategies. In one case, final course grades were higher for attendees than non-attendees despite the two groups being similar in demographics, prior learning and test 1 grades. However, treatment explained only 10% of the difference in total points and students’ metacognition was not measured (38). That is, the link between metacognition and performance was merely implied. In the other case, the authors point to improvements in test grades across the term, compared to previous years in which no information session was provided, and increased improvements for students exposed to the information session in two consecutive terms as benefits of metacognitive training (43). The final article, featuring the on-line homework platform LearnSmart, illustrated the importance of metacognitive training. LearnSmart includes metacognitive features but results showed that students who used the metacognitive features without scaffolded support did not achieve the learning gains observed for students receiving scaffolding questions that supported the use of the platform’s metacognitive features. The observed effect was modest and students’ metacognition was not measured (49).

Conclusions In its 2012 report on discipline-based education research (DBER), the US National Research Council identified metacognition as a topic vital to learning science and engineering that warranted further study (50). The increase of research articles on metacognition in higher education science in recent years demonstrates that the call is being answered. However, perhaps owing to a lack of awareness of the importance of metacognition, or alternatively, the belief that it is not the responsibility of science instructors to foster metacognitive abilities, insufficient research has been done to fully address issues related to the role of metacognition in chemistry (51). The collection of articles highlighted in this chapter shows 70

a diverse approach to examining metacognition in higher education chemistry domains. Although some studies found the expected positive relationship between metacognitive skills and performance in higher education chemistry, others did not. However, review of the current research identifies directions to take going forward. More research is required to improve the teaching and assessment of metacognition, to develop effective interventions to improve metacognition, to unequivocally establish the link between metacognition and performance in higher education chemistry, and to carry the results of this research into the classroom. The need for the teaching of metacognitive skills is one of the main implications of research on the teaching and learning of science that has emerged during the past three decades (52). Given this statement, it is very surprising to see how few (just 2) of the studies highlighted in this chapter included explicit instruction on metacognition. More research is needed to establish best practices in teaching the concept of metacognition and its importance for learning and performance to university chemistry students. Research should focus on effects of explicit instruction, modelling, integration of metacognitive skills with course content, and opportunities for practice and reflection. With respect to assessment of metacognition, the articles highlighted in this chapter illustrate that, by far (19 of 31 articles), the most common method for assessing metacognition is student self-reports through established questionnaires. Although validity and reliability of these measures have been established for most instruments, there are problems with relying solely on self-reports to measure metacognition. For one, observed increases or decreases in self-reported metacognitive practices over time are open to interpretation. Most often, researchers point to increases in self-reported metacognitive practices over time as evidence for improved metacognition. However, sometimes decreases in students’ self-reported metacognitive practices are claimed as victories, the notion being that students are more familiar with the concept of metacognition after a metacognitive intervention and, therefore, are better able to assess their metacognitive skills after the intervention. These dueling interpretations of changes in self-reported metacognitive skills indicate that future research should utilize additional, complementary measures of metacognition to better interpret and understand what the ratings mean and whether metacognitive change occurred. Another problem with self-reports is related to the complicated nature of metacognition. Research supports the dual nature of metacognition: in some contexts, it is a general construct; in others, it is more task-specific (47). Self-reports, however, owing to the nature of the items included and the timing of completion, tend to assess general metacognition only. The same criticism holds for confidence judgments and test grade pre- and postdictions as measures of metacognition. If these measurements are not made within the context of conditions of a specific criterion task, they tend to assess general and not task-specific metacognitive skills. Test grade pre- and postdictions also suffer from the added complication of variations in test averages. That is, because most students tend to overestimate their level of preparation or performance, tests with higher averages give the impression that students are more accurate in their judgments. These issues highlight the need for more concurrent assessments of 71

metacognition, e.g., via IMMEX or think-aloud protocols to measure task-specific metacognition, as well as the need to incorporate multiple assessment modalities to corroborate findings and capture the complex nature of metacognition (47). Interestingly, only 4 articles highlighted in this chapter made use of multiple modes of metacognitive assessment. The collection of articles featured also highlight the need for more research examining metacognition in senior years of the undergraduate curriculum. Of the 31 articles included, 23 used students registered in a typical introductory chemistry course, most in their first year of study, as participants (see Table 2 in the Appendix for a summary). Another 3 articles involved participants in teacher education programs who were enrolled in an introductory chemistry course (32–34), and 1 article used participants enrolled in an upgrading year introductory chemistry course to address under-prepararedness (42). In the remaining 4 articles, participants included “2nd year” students with no course specified (21), “first and second year students enrolled in general, inorganic or organic chemistry (25)”, students enrolled in a biochemistry course (year of study not specified) (36), and students enrolled in an organic chemistry course (3% 1st year; 24% 2nd year; 26% 3rd year, 36% 4th year, 11% post-degree) (40). Expanding the range of students studied, as well as the types of chemistry courses at each level of study, would allow a more precise understanding of the impact of specific metacognitive interventions. A closely related issue is the relatively small number of longitudinal studies that have been reported. Of the 31 articles, 26 collected data within a single term and only 5 collected data over two terms (see Table 2 in the Appendix for a summary). Studies stretching beyond that time frame did not include the same students. That is, data may have been collected in four consecutive years in a general chemistry course, but in no cases were the same group of students monitored for more than two consecutive terms. Given how long it may take to train students in metacognitive strategies, as suggested by persistent Dunning-Kruger effects noted previously (29, 41, 48), there is a need for more longitudinal studies that monitor improvements in metacognition beyond a single year of study. If students had the opportunity to experience multiple interventions over their years of study we would be able to identify which interventions best support learners as chemistry domain knowledge increases. Finally, of the 31 articles highlighted, 20 were completed in the United States, 5 in Turkey, 3 in South Africa, 1 in Canada, 1 in Spain and 1 in Taiwan. Given that inadequate metacognitive skills in university students is not a regional problem, but a universal one, there is a need for more widespread studies on metacognition in higher education chemistry within and among countries. In closing, we know that metacognition is a complex skill but one that underlies all higher order thinking skills. Higher education chemistry instruction depends upon learners’ ability to execute metacognitive skills effortlessly. Providing concurrent instruction to support development of metacognitive skills in addition to chemistry content may provide students in higher education chemistry classes with the skills, scaffolds and practice needed to maximize their learning potential. 72

Appendix Table 1. Publications Excluded from ‘Total Unique Hits’ Reason For Exclusion

Number

Chemistry not the/a focus

5

Metacognition not the/a focus

21

Not higher education

18

Not a student sample

7

Not a research study

8

More than one of the above

16

Cannot access full text

2

Total number of exclusions

77

73

Table 2. Summary Table for 31 Articles Meeting Inclusion Criteria

74

Reference

Metacognition Taughti

Metacognition Assessedii

Interventioniii

Improved Metacognitioniv

Improved Performancevi

Course (No. of terms)

Location

(19)

no

yes (SR)

yes (TM)

yes

nr

intro chem (1)

USA

(20)

no

yes (SR)

no

yes

yes (SR)

intro chem (1)

USA

(21)

no

yes (SR)

yes (SA)

yes

nr

“2nd year” (1)

South Africa

(22)

no

yes (SR, C)

no

nr

yes (IM)

intro chem (1)

USA

(23)

no

yes (SR)

no

no

yes (SR)

intro chem (1)

USA

(24)

no

yes (PP)

no

nr

yes (DK)

intro chem (1)

South Africa

(25)

no

yes (C)

no

nr

nr

intro/org/inorg (1)

USA

(26)

no

no

yes (TM)

nr

nr

intro chem (1)

USA

(27)

no

yes (SR)

no

nr

yes (SR)

intro chem (1)

Turkey

(28)

no

yes (SR, C)

yes (TM)

no

yes/no (IM)

intro chem (1)

USA

(29)

no

yes (PP)

no

no

yes (DK)

intro chem (2)

USA

(30)

no

no

yes (SA)

nr

no

intro chem (1)

USA

(31)

no

yes (TM)

yes

yes (IM)

intro chem (2)

USA

(32)

no

yes (SR)

yes (SA)

nr

yes (SR)

gen. ed. chem (1)

USA

(33)

no

yes (SR)

yes (TM)

yes

nr

intro chem (1)

Turkey

(34)

no

yes (SR)

yes (P)

yes

yes (SR)

intro chem (1)

Turkey

(35)

no

yes (SR)

no

nr

yes (SR)

intro chem (1)

Turkey

yes (C)

75 i

Reference

Metacognition Taughti

Metacognition Assessedii

Interventioniii

Improved Metacognitioniv

Improved Performancevi

Course (No. of terms)

Location

(36)

no

yes (SR, C)

no

nr

yes (SR)

biochem (1)

Turkey

(37)

no

yes (SR)

yes (TM)

yes

no

intro chem (2)

USA

(38)

yes

no

yes (EI)

nr

yes

intro chem (1)

USA

(39)

no

yes (SR)

yes (P)

yes

no

intro chem (1)

Canada

(40)

no

yes (SR)

yes (SA)

nr

no

orgo chem (1)

USA

(41)

no

yes (PP)

no

no

yes (DK)

intro chem (1)

USA

(42)

no

yes (EI)

no

yes (DK)

“prep” chem (1)

South Africa

(43)

yes

yes (SR)

yes (EI, P)

yes

yes

intro chem (2)

USA

(44)

no

yes (SR)

no

nr

yes (SR)

intro chem (1)

Spain

(45)

no

yes (SR)

yes (TM)

yes

no

intro chem (1)

USA

(46)

no

yes (PP)

no

nr

yes/no (DK)

intro chem (1)

USA

(47)

no

yes (SR, C, PP)

no

nr

yes (DK)

intro chem (1)

Taiwan

(48)

no

yes (PP)

no

yes (DK)

intro chem (2)

USA

(49)

no

no

yes

intro chem (1)

USA

yes (PP)

yes (P)

yes and

nov

nr ii

Metacognition Taught = explicit instruction on the meaning and importance of metacognition. SR = self-report; C = concurrent; PP = pre/postdiction. iii EI = explicit instruction; TM = comparing teaching methods; SA = introducing student activities; P = using prompts. iv nr = no report - metacognition measured on one day or not at all, or measured over time but change not addressed; no = metacognition measured over time but no improvement observed. v Initial improvement observed but then no additional improvement over two terms. vi nr = no report; no = no improvement observed; yes/no = mixed result; DK = based on Dunning-Kruger effect; IM = based on IMMEX results; SR = based on self-report vs performance (or performance indicator) comparison.

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29. Bell, P.; Volckmann, D. J. Chem. Educ. 2011, 88 (11), 1469–1476. 30. Parker Siburt, C. J.; Bissell, A. N.; Macphail, R. A. J. Chem. Educ. 2011, 88 (11), 1489–1495. 31. Sandi-Urena, S.; Cooper, M.; Stevens, R. J. Chem. Educ. 2012, 89 (6), 700–706. 32. Dianovsky, M. T.; Wink, D. J. Sci. Educ. 2012, 96 (3), 543–565. 33. Tosun, C.; Senocak, E. Aust. J. Teach. Educ. 2013, 38 (3)Article 4. 34. Saribas, D.; Mugaloglu, E. Z.; Bayram, H. J. Math. Sci. T. 2013, 9 (1), 83–88. 35. Uzuntiryaki-Kondakçi, E.; Çapa-Aydin, Y. Educ. Sci.-Theor. Pract. 2013, 13 (1), 666–670. 36. Sadi, Ö. High. Educ. Stud. 2013, 3 (5), 52–67. 37. Xu, H.; Talanquer, V. J. Chem. Educ. 2013, 90 (1), 21–28. 38. Cook, E.; Kennedy, E.; McGuire, S. Y. J. Chem. Educ. 2013, 90 (8), 961–967. 39. Muis, K. R.; Ranellucci, J.; Franco, G. M. J. Exp. Educ. 2013, 81 (4), 556–578. 40. Lopez, E. J.; Nandagopal, K.; Shavelson, R. J.; Szu, E.; Penn, J. J. Res. Sci. Teach. 2013, 50 (6), 660–676. 41. Pazicni, S.; Bauer, C. F. Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. 2014, 15 (1), 24–34. 42. Mathabathe, K. C.; Potgieter, M. Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. 2014, 15 (1), 94–104. 43. Zhao, N.; Wardeska, J. G.; McGuire, S. Y.; Cook, E. J. Coll. Sci. Teach. 2014, 43 (4), 48–54. 44. González, A.; Paoloni, P.-V. Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. 2015, 16 (3), 640–653. 45. van Opstal, M. T.; Daubenmire, P. L. Int. J. Sci. Educ. 2015, 37 (7), 1089–1112. 46. Lindsey, B. A.; Nagel, M. L. Phys. Rev. Spec. Top. Phys. Educ. Res. 2015, 11 (2), 020103. 47. Wang, C. –Y. Res. Sci. Educ. 2015, 45 (4), 555–579. 48. Hawker, M. J.; Dysleski, L.; Rickey, D. J. Chem. Educ. 2016, 93 (5), 832–840. 49. Thadani, V.; Bouvier-Brown, N. C. J. Excel. Coll. Teach. 2016, 27 (2), 77–95. 50. National Research Council. Discipline-Based Education Research: Understanding and Improving Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering; Singer, S. R.; Nielsen, N. R.; Schweingruber, H. A., Eds.; Committee on the Status, Contributions, and Future Directions of Discipline-Based Education Research. Board on Science Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education: Washington, DC, 2012. 51. Rickey, D.; Stacy, A. M. J. Chem. Educ. 2000, 77 (7), 915–920. 52. Zohar, A.; Dori, Y. Metacognition in Science Education: Trends in Current Research; Ziedler, D., Ed.; Contemporary Trends and Issues in Science Education; Springer, 2012; pp 1−19.

77

Chapter 6

The Development of a New Curriculum for Chemistry Education in The Netherlands J. H. Apotheker* Science LinX, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 9, 1847 AG, Groningen, The Netherlands *E-mail: [email protected].

A short overview of the history of chemistry education in The Netherlands since about 1927 is given. Several major changes in 1945, 1968, 1998 and 2013 are highlighted. The last one in 2013 is discussed in more detail. In 2013 a new curriculum was implemented in The Netherlands, based on experiments with teachers that took place between 2002 and 2010. These changes were based on an in depth analysis of problems with chemistry education at that time The new curriculum has not only a focus on concepts of chemistry, but focuses as well on the relationship between chemistry and society.. The concepts are used to delve deeper into this relationship. Resulting in having sustainability part of the curriculum, as well as green chemistry, life cycle analysis and cradle to cradle design. More than 300 teachers participated in developing educational materials. Some twenty schools participated in a pilot that took four years to develop and try out the new curriculum. The results of this pilot were used to formulate an exam program that was presented in September 2010. Based on this exam program a more concrete syllabus was formulated, which contained the learning objectives that would be examined centrally. In 2013 new books for chemistry in secondary schools appeared. In 2015 and 2016 the first central examinations were administered. It will take some time before the new curriculum has settled down and found a concrete form.

© 2018 American Chemical Society

Introduction Chemistry education in The Netherlands has gone through a number of developments since 1945, marking the end of World War II (1). At that time chemistry was taught only in upper secondary education. And then only in those groups that chose a science major. That meant that only a small number of people actually learned anything about chemistry. Since 1927, few changes had been made to the curriculum that existed before the war, as described by Verkade (2). Students learned a lot of facts, and did little or no experiments. When experiments were done, they were performed by the teacher. Verkade gives examples of questions from the central examination that students needed to answer: (1) 2.1 grams of a monovalent base, dissolved in 75 grams of water, give a lowering of the freezing paint of 1.852'. The percentage dissociation of the base in this solution is 95. Calculate the atomic weight of the metal of this base. H = 1; 0 = 16; molecular lowering of the freezing point of water (1 grammolecule in 100 gr. of water) is 19°C. And (2) How is a solution of sodium hydrogen sulfate obtained, if a burette, caustic soda solution, dilute sulfuric acid and a litmus solution are available? (3) What reactions occur on heating: (a) sodium bicarbonate; (6) mercuric nitrate; (c) ammonium chloride; (d) blue vitriol? How may a solution of ferric chloride be converted into a solution of ferrous chloride and into a solution of ferric sulfate? These questions illustrate the type of knowledge students were expected to learn and reproduce. It cannot be a surprise that lecturers at university complained about the lack of knowledge of students. After six months, they had completely forgotten most of these facts.

The First Major Change in 1968 Still things did not change over much until in 1968 a major change in secondary education was implemented. The major reason for this change was the realization that more people with higher education were needed for the economy to grow. Only a small percentage of students went from secondary school to higher education. That needed to change. A separation was made between secondary education preparing for university, and more general education. One of the major changes was the reduction in the number of subjects in which an exam had to be taken. Before 1968, this was 14 or more. After 1968 this was reduced to 7. In the Gymnasia, in which Latin and Greek were obligatory, this meant that both Dutch and one of the classic languages 80

were part of these 7. The others could be chosen freely. One of these subjects was chemistry. As all science faculties as well as all medical faculties required chemistry as a subject is was chosen widely. In the “Athenea” as they were called, which did not offer Latin or Greek, the only obligatory subject was Dutch. In later stages English and Mathematics were included in the obligatory subjects. The main advantage lay in the fact that now there was a lot more time available for subjects like chemistry. This called for a change in curriculum. Both in The Netherlands and elsewhere this led to experiments like the Nuffield curriculum (3). In this curriculum, which was experimented in the eighties, several changes were implemented. One of the first was a change in the curriculum for 9th grade. Every student has to take chemistry in 9th grade. In order to give a better overview of what chemistry entailed the subjects taught at this level were changed. Goals were to showcase chemistry as a science and as part of cultural background of society, and to recognize the role chemistry plays in society. The level should be such that all students, including those that did not choose a science major, should be able to follow the lessons. Subjects taught in 9th grade were: • • • • • • •

Substances Chemical reactions Elements and compounds Combustion Molecules and atoms Atomic model and chemical bonding Electives

In the higher grades, 10, 11 and 12 topics like • • • • • • • • •

Rutherford atomic model, isotopes Periodic table Redox reactions Acid/base theory Rates and catalysis Equilibrium Organic chemistry Energy and free energy Electives

All in all, a much more complete program, which fitted much better to first year university chemistry courses. The effect was, that a much larger proportion of the students elected chemistry as one of the seven subjects to study. Universities required chemistry for all medical studies, and all sciences. Almost 50 to 70% of the students in pre-university secondary schools elected chemistry around 1980. 81

One of the major changes in the curriculum in 1980 was also a didactic one. In the older program knowledge was built up from theory, in small steps, and mainly focused on facts. Students had to learn and reproduce all types of reactions like: • •

Acid + base yields salt and water Acid forming oxide + water yields acid

There was little or no room for practical experiments carried out by students. In the new program acids were introduced by an experiment of litmus with several solutions. Focus was more on understanding and application than on reproduction of facts. In the textbooks chapters were now called “water” for example. This new more inductive approach was appreciated by the students (3).

The Second Major Change in 1998 In 1974 a discussion started about the role of education in society, led by van Kemenade, at that time minister of education. This discussion led to a broader discussion about secondary education. After experiments with so called middle schools this discussion culminated in a major change in secondary education, which was implemented in 1998. The main idea behind this change was that still more students were needed in higher education. The level in secondary schools was considered too high. Another reason to change the curriculum and introduce more subjects was the idea that a broader knowledge was needed in order to participate more fully in society. In this new system, which is depicted in Figure 1, students were supposed to choose a major after the first phase of secondary education. Secondary education is split into two phases, in which the third year is a pivot-point. Majors to be chosen were: • • • •

Culture and Society Society and Economics Science and Health Science and Technology

The implementation of these majors led to a dramatic drop in students electing to take one of the science majors. A shift towards society and economics took place, which was chosen by about 25% of the students. Attendance in Science and health was about 25%, while science and technology only drew about 11% of the students. This was also influenced by the fact that for most science studies only science and health was an entry requirement. Another major change in 1998 was that the number of subjects was raised again from 7 to about 14, giving students o broader general education, deemed necessary to be able to participate more fully in society. This led to less class time for chemistry and science in particular. What also happened is, that the number of students choosing a bachelor in science and technology dropped from about 13% to about 7.5% in 2004 (4). 82

Figure 1. The Dutch educational system. After primary education, three strands in secondary education are possible. The years Chemistry is taught are indicated in grey.

Analysis of Problems in Chemistry Education This initiated a wide spread discussion about the quality and content of chemistry in secondary education. In Europe, the EU published a report (5) about the problems in science education. Shortly later followed by a critical review from the Nuffield foundation (6). In The Netherlands, a committee led by professor van Koten, dean of the science faculty at the university of Utrecht analyzed a number of problems in The Netherlands (7). 83

In line with the other European reports (5, 6) the van Koten committee reported that • • •

The image of chemistry as a subject is negative There is no relation between the content of chemistry in secondary education and chemistry in research and industry The current chemistry curriculum leaves teachers and students not enough time to make chemistry education more challenging and interesting

Van Koten was then asked to chair a committee that formulated possible changes. This committee submitted a reported in 2003 (8). In that report, a number of proposed changes in chemistry education were formulated. A new curriculum for chemistry should be • • •

context based based on achieving scientific literacy developed by networks of teachers, coached by professionals

The ministry of education initiated a steering committee, again chaired by van Koten. This steering committee was asked to develop a new curriculum together with teachers. A group of coaches from different universities was found and brought together. This group worked locally with teachers in the region to develop educational material for 9th grade chemistry classes, using the staring points and structure of Chemie im Kontext (CHIK), as developed at the IPN and the University of Oldenburg (9). The CHIK structure consisted in a number of steps. Starting point is a context some phenomenon, that students encounter in their daily life. “combustion” is a standard example. In one of the comic books that was popular at the time, called “Asterix and Cleopatra (10)” In this story a taster, who tastes everything Cleopatra eats is introduced. He is poisoned, which is the basis of the educational material. The main question for the students was: “How can we find out whether food is poisoned, without risking the life of a taste?” The answer is found in all sorts of separation techniques and reactants that are specific for certain types of food. In the last part students find out in which situations they can use this knowledge they have acquired, for example in the purification of water to drinking water. In Table 1 the steps in the modules are given. In three years’ time about fifteen different modules were prepared, published and tried out. More than 300 different teachers out of about 1500 chemistry teachers in The Netherlands were involved in try-outs and giving feedback on the use of the material. Even the Dutch society for chemical industry financed the development of modules, highlighting chemical industry (11). 84

Table 1. Phases developed in a CHIK module Phases in module Phase 1: Engage

Introduce context, read Asterix and Cleopatra

Formulate context question

Phase 2: Explore

Derive relevant scientific questions

Define needed knowledge

Phase 3: Explain

1. collect knowledge, acquire skills 2. exchange and scaffold knowledge 3. answer context question

Phase 4: Explore

Can other context questions be answered?

Connection to following module, how can water be purified into drinking water?

The feedback received from these teachers was used to discuss the way a new chemistry curriculum could be developed for higher secondary education. This discussion resulted in the start of a pilot in 2007 with about twenty different schools. In parallel to the development of the new chemistry curriculum, biology and physics formed their own steering committee developing changes for that curriculum. Mathematics followed a bit later. Because of these new developments and discussions people took the initiative to startup experiments. A completely new subject, called science, life and technology was developed, in which context oriented modules were designed. In these modules at least two subjects from STEM(Science Technology Engineering and mathematics) were combined. In 2016 about 200 schools offer this particular course to students as an elective apart from the other science (12).

Pilot Experiment In the pilot experiment about twenty schools participated voluntarily. They were chosen from the schools that had participated in the previous experiments. They were located around the universities of Nijmegen, Groningen and Utrecht. They agreed to develop a new curriculum, based on the work developed earlier by several groups. Three strands were formed, coached by educational researchers and teacher trainers. One was connected to the University of Utrecht, one to the University of Nijmegen, and one (the author) connected to the university of Groningen. Each developed their own learning line with the schools they worked with. The schools were regionally organized and signed a contract with the Institute for Curriculum Development, which financed this pilot. The pilot was to be evaluated by a group of scientist from the Institute for Curriculum Development (13). 85

Main questions to be answered in the pilot were: •

Implementation of the new curriculum o o o o

•

In what way are teachers and students coping with the new curriculum? Which problems arise and how are they solved? How does the curriculum fit in the school organization? Are the basic principles formulated by the van Koten committee observed?

Results of the new curriculum? o o o o

Does it result in a coherent program? Is the program suitable for all teachers? Does the program induce more students to choose chemistry as a subject? How do teachers and students evaluate the material?

The answers to the first three items and the last three were answered by the group coordinated by professor W. Kuiper of SLO, that reported separately (11).

Design of the Pilot The three coaches developed three different strands. One strand was based on material that was developed earlier at the University of Nijmegen (14). This material used experiments as a starting point for the development of chemical theory. For the pilot, this was adapted to be used within contexts. The second strand, developed by the university of Utrecht had as a central focus cooperative learning. They used the background of Johnson and Johnson (15) as a base for their educational design as well as jigsaw, which was developed at the University of California at Santa Cruz (16). The third strand, coached by the author, centered around the University of Groningen did not use one specific educational design. Material from different sources using appropriate pedagogical methodology for each subject. Basically, in this group the 5 E model as developed by Roger Bybee (17) was used as a backbone for design. This method is described in Table 2. During the pilot coaches and teachers met regularly to discuss progress and problems. The coaches met as well, in a meeting chaired by a member of the national steering committee (the author). In Table 3 the titles, indicating the context that was used for the modules that were used in the per-university groups are given. The year was divided into five periods. Each period contained about 12 lessons of chemistry.

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Table 2. Phases in the 5E model Phase

Description

Techniques used in the module perfume (see Table 3)

Engage

In the engage phase students are getting interested in the subject of the module. Both formal and informal learning activities will be planned.

Students were given an article in which the molecules active for smell in perfumes were discussed.

Explore

In the explore phase students start formulating questions.

How can you differentiate between these molecules, what names do they get, what are there characteristics?

Explain

In the explanation phase knowledge is gained, data collected and scaffolded.

Students performed experiments, looked up IPUAC rules for names of organic compounds. Knowledge was related to existing knowledge about organic molecules.

Elaborate

In the elaboration phase the attention shifts another context.

Students studied biodiesel and were able to use the knowledge about esters they learned in the previous phase.

Evaluate

In the evaluation phase the students are tested on their content knowledge. The students themselves determine what they learned from the project.

A regular final test was written by the students, to determine their knowledge about organic chemistry.

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Table 3. Titles of modules used in the pilot experiment Period

Year 4 pre university

Year 5 pre university

Year 6 pre university

Average age students

15/16

16/17

17/18

1

Perfume (esters, alcohols, carboxylic acids, unsaturated compounds)

ECO-travel around the world (stoichiometry, biotechnology)

Chemistry in the mouth (buffers, receptors, polymers in dentistry)

2

Growing (salts, fertilizer and pesticides)

Energy to take away (red ox)

Gasification (technology, alternative fuels, electro. technology)

3

A swallow or a shot. The route of Medicine (influence of pH on organic substances)

Smart materials

Own research project

4

Artificial sweeteners (stereochemistry, peptides and biotechnology)

Chemistry of transportation (polymers energy in the cell)

Nobel prize (the atom and the periodic table)

Green Chemistry

5

Exam training

Central Examination In The Netherlands students take a central examination at the end of their last school year. Because the curriculum for this particular group of students was different from the rest of the schools, a special central examination was made for this group. One third of the questions was identical to the regular group, one third was specific for the program they had followed, one third was a mix between their background and the regular group. A guarantee was given that the results of the pilot were compensated, so that students were not disadvantaged by their participation in the pilot. The first time such an exam was written by the students was in 2008 (18). This led to surprising results. The students scored more or less the same as regular students on the third that was identical to the normal curriculum. They scored less on the questions related to their own program. The problem here was that the people that produced the exam questions were not directly involved in the pilot. Over the years this changed towards a better fit. Towards the end of the pilot after 5 years of education, and two central exam sessions the teachers of all participating schools worked together to formulate learning objectives for a new curriculum. In these sessions, chaired by the 88

steering committee, the Institute for Curriculum Development participated, as well as CEVO, the Dutch organization for producing the central examinations.

Result This ultimately led to a proposal for an exam program, as part of a final report to the minister of education. This report was handed to the minister in 2011 (19). She decided the new curriculum should be implemented in September 2013. In order to be able to do that a special curriculum committee was set up, to formulate the exact learning goals for the program, based on the exam program. The first version of this curriculum was published in 2012 (20). The old curriculum was set up around concepts in chemistry. There was a section organic chemistry, redox reactions, acid/base theory etc. In the new curriculum things were organized in a different way. The first three sections dealt with core concepts and skills. In these sections basic chemical knowledge about chemical bonds, structures and properties was defined, including concepts like equilibrium, energy technological discussions etc. In the second part, chemical methodology, safety and synthesis were a subject. In the last part applications of chemical knowledge like innovation and chemical research including sustainability are defined. Life cycle analysis, cradle to cradle design are part of the curriculum. Green chemistry is part of the section on chemical technology, and includes analysis of chemical processes, and sustainable production. In the last section, the link between society and chemistry is defined, which includes aspects of biochemistry, but also the relationship between chemical processes and the environment.

Discussion Results during the pilot varied. Especially in the first year it took time to develop new material that could be used. Both teachers and students had problems adapting to their different roles. One teacher commented, it took him two years to change his role from lecturer to teacher-coach. It took time for the students as well to accept and implement the new responsibility they received in their own learning. But students enjoyed working with the material very much (11). They were interested in the subjects and worked hard as a rule in class. In the cooperative learning strand teachers needed extra training in order to work effectively with the cooperative learning methodology. Problems that were signaled involved the lack of practice. In the new material practicing in exercises and problem solving was not a large part of the material. As a result calculations involving the mole, pH, equilibrium were not developed as fully as wished. Extra sessions were needed to let the students master this type of problems more deeply. Another problem was the material produced. This lacked finesse. It still needed to be adapted for classroom work. This bothered both the teachers as well as the students. The students indicated it was difficult to determine exactly what they needed to learn for a test. 89

Students’ motivation was increased. Students experienced that they needed to know things in order to be able to answer the context questions. This stimulated them enormously. Teachers indicated the program that was carried out was coherent. Students got a much better idea of the role of chemistry in society. Contexts are effective in engaging the students. Because of the new curriculum publishers have adapted the textbooks for chemistry. They have not yet adapted all ideas of context oriented chemistry education, but the new books are a tremendous step in the new direction (21–23). In 2016 the first central examination of the new curriculum was taken. These central examinations have a major effect on the way teachers prepare their students. The first exam was still fairly traditional, even though new subjects like green chemistry were examined. It is unfortunate that the central exams have such a large effect on the realized curriculum in the classroom. It is expected however that the next exams will slowly adapt more and pore to the new curriculum.

Acknowledgments This work has been financed by the Dutch Ministry of Education, The Institute if Curriculum Development, Betasteunpunt, VNCI.

References Velthorst, N. In De geschiedenis van de scheikunde in Nederland 3; Homburg, E., Palm, L., Eds.; Delft University Press: Delft, 2004; pp 37–59. 2. Verkade, P. E. J. Chem. Educ. 1927, 4 (6), 703–710. 3. Ingle, R. B. Sci. Educ. 1984, 68 (5), 541–561. 4. Gans, S. ontwikkelingen in de instroom in het hoger onderwijs-CBS; The Hague, 2010. 5. Rocard, M.; Csermely, P.; Jorde, D.; Lenzen, D.; Walberg-Henriksson, H.; Hemmo, V. Science Education Now: A Renewed Pedagogy for the Future of Europe; European Commission: Brussels, 2007; Vol. EUR 22845. 6. Osborne, J.; Dillon, J. Science Education in Europe: Critical Reflections. A Report to the Nuffield Foundation; The Nuffield Foundation: London, 2008. 7. Koten Kruijff, B. de, Driessen, H. P. W., Kerkstra, A., Meinema,H. A., G. van. Bouwen aan scheikunde; SLO: Enschede, 2002. 8. Driessen, H. P. W.; Meinema, H. A. Chemie tussen context en concept; SLO: Enschede, 2003. 9. Parchmann, I.; Ralle, B. In Chemieunterricht im Spannungsfeld GesellschaftChemie-Umwelt; Kornetzt, A., Ed.; Cornelesen Verlag: Berlin, 1998; pp 12–24. 10. Goscinny, R.; Uderzo, A. Asterix and Cleopatra; Orion: London, 2004. 11. Stichting C3. Onderwijsmiddelen nieuwe scheikunde. https://onderwijs middelen.c3.nl/project/vnci-nieuwe-scheikunde/ (accessed 3/14/2018). 12. Vereniging NLT, C. betavak NLT. http://betavak-nlt.nl/nl/p/english/ (accessed 3/14/2018). 1.

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13. Folmer, E.; Bruning, L.; Michels, B.; Kuiper, W. Evaluatie invoering vernieuwe bèta examenprogramma’s; SLO: Enschede, 2012. 14. Apotheker, J. H.; Bulte, A. NVOX 2008, 33 (5), 202–204. 15. Johnson Johnson,R. T., D. W. Learning Together and Alone, 5th ed.; Allyn and Bacon: Boston, 1999. 16. Aronson, E.; Patnoe, S. The Jigsaw Classroom: Building Cooperation in the Classroom, 2nd ed.; Allyn and Bacon: San Francisco, 1996. 17. Bybee, R. W. Learning Science and the Science of Learning; NSTA Press: Arlington, VA, 2002. 18. Apotheker, J.; Hennink, D.; van Hekezen, N.; Kleijn, E. D.; Vogelezang, M. NVOX 2009 (8), 359–361. 19. Apotheker, J. H.; Bulte, A.; de Kleijn, E.; van Koten, G.; Meinema, H.; Sellar, F. Scheikunde in de dynamiek van de toekomst, Eindrapport van de stuurgroep Nieuwe Scheikunde 2004-2010; SLO: Enschede, 2010. 20. Bertona, C.; de Kleijn, E.; Hennink, D.; Apotheker, J. H.; van Drooge, H.; Waals, M.; van Daalen, R.; van Lune, J. Scheikunde VWO, Syllabus Centraal Examen 2016; College voor Examens: Utrecht, 2014. 21. Lodewijks, T.; Valk, T. de Nova Scheikunde, 4 HAVO, 1st ed.; Kerkstra, A., Ed.; Malmberg: Hertogenbosch, 2013. 22. Kabel-van den Brand, M. A. W.; Spillane, B. Chemie Overal, 4th ed.; Noordhoff Uitgevers bv: Groningen, 2012. 23. Bolt, W.; Driessen, H.; Rietman, W.; Scholte, H.; Velzeboer, M. Chemie, 6th ed.; Buwalda, R., Scholte, H., Thole, E., Eds.; Noordhoff Uitgevers bv: Groningen, 2013.

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Chapter 7

Challenges, Barriers, and Achievements in Chemistry Education: The Case of Greece Georgios Tsaparlis* Department of Chemistry, University of Ioannina, GR-451 10 Ioannina, Greece *E-mail: [email protected].

Chemistry education as an established research field has a relatively short history, starting in the 1970s. It studies the process of learning chemistry content, and so it belongs to the social sciences. Chemistry education research is based on both theory and data, and it produces generalizable and applicable results. The present author started his engagement with chemistry education in the late 1970s, and has followed progress in the field ever since. He has greatly been influenced by J. Dudley Herron’s Piagetian views about the learning of chemistry concepts and Alex H. Johnstone’s three-level structure of the chemistry content and his information processing model of learning. In this chapter, the focus is on a number of the author’s studies and on curriculum and educational material, which relate directly to Greek chemistry education, but also have an international dimension and interest. Challenges and achievements, as well as barriers to the development of Greek chemistry education are reported, plus perspectives for international chemistry education. Short reference is also made to the work of other internationally recognized Greek chemistry educators, who have made and still are making substantial contributions to both Greek and international chemistry education.

© 2018 American Chemical Society

Introduction: Chemistry Education as a Research Field At the outset, the present author has to confess that since he started his academic career, a dominant influence on his commitment to chemistry education has been his reading of the Journal of Chemical Education. This journal, since its launch in 1924, has established itself as a precious and indispensable tool for chemistry teachers both in the U.S. and worldwide. The journal contains an abundance of articles expressing views, ideas, positions and suggestions about courses, content and teaching practices at all levels of education. These articles provide a rich supporting background for what has relatively recently been termed as pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). More generally, although chemistry education as an activity has existed “in one form or another as long as there has been chemistry (1)”, it is only relatively recently that it has become established as a field of research. Its origins go back only to the 1970s, with the Americans J. Dudley Herron and Dorothy L. Gabel and the British Alex H. Johnstone to be considered as its originators. Herron applied cognitive science, especially Piaget’s theory of intellectual development, to teaching chemistry (2, 3). For Gabel, as the student population becomes more heterogeneous and researchers learn more about how students of diverse backgrounds, learning styles and ability acquire knowledge, the way chemistry content is structured will become increasingly important (4). Finally, according to Johnstone (5), if young students are to catch our enthusiasm about our subject, a harmonization of a logical approach to chemistry with a psychological one will be necessary and this can be provided through educational research. Chemistry education is closely related to chemistry, but as a research field it belongs to the social sciences, studying variables relating to chemistry content or to what the teacher or student does in a learning environment (6). As such, it involves a complex interplay between the process of learning and the content, with the aim to understand and improve chemistry learning. The context of teaching and learning (the learning environment) is a decisive and often impeding factor for the validity and application of the research results to school populations. A report by the American Chemical Society (ACS) in 1994 defined the elements of scholarship in chemistry education: scholarship of teaching (that is, excellence in teaching); scholarship of discovery; scholarship of application. Characteristics of research are that it: is theory based; is data based; produces generalizable and applicable results (7). The “Division of Chemical Education” of the “European Association of Chemical and Molecular Sciences” (EuCheMS) (formerly “Federation of European Chemical Societies”, FECS) also produced a position paper on empirical research into chemical education (8) in 1999. Recently, two ACS books, in the ACS symposia series, dealt with a number of essential and useful aspects of chemistry education research (CER). The first book on the “Nuts and Bolts of Chemistry Education Research (9)” is directed to a diverse audience and provides an overview of the field, discussing how CER questions could be addressed. The second book on “Tools of Chemistry Education Research (10)” is addressed to researchers who wish to learn more about specific techniques of CER, covering a range of areas of research and of qualitative and quantitative methods of research. Finally, there has been a report by the 94

US National Research Council on “Discipline-Based Education Research (11)”, which concerns understanding and improving learning in undergraduate science and engineering. Many areas of CER are described, including consideration of CER as a field of inquiry. Today, chemistry education researchers have at their disposal many educational theories, models and tools from the cognitive and the affective domains, such as constructivism (of which, as described by George Bodner, there are many forms (12)), the alternative conceptions framework, scientific literacy, context-based learning, cooperative learning, philosophy and history of chemistry, laboratory work, and the new educational technologies.

International and National Chemistry Education: The Contribution by Greek Scholars The present author started his engagement with chemistry education in the late 1970s, and has followed the subsequent progress of the field since. From young age, I loved teaching, but the turning point, which sparked my interest and eventually attracted me to chemistry education, was reading about Herron’s application of the Piagetian theory to chemical concepts (2, 3). For Herron, concepts such as metal and nonmetal, which have perceptible examples and perceptible attributes, require just concrete operations for their learning; on the other hand, concepts such as chemical element and chemical compound, which have perceptible examples but imperceptible attributes, as well as concepts such as atom and molecule, which have imperceptible examples and imperceptible attributes, will require formal operations, in the Piagetian sense, if they are to be learned. In this and other ways, Piaget’s theory became internal to science education (13). Alex Johnstone was another scholar who exerted a great influence on me, especially during 1990, when I spent a sabbatical semester with him in Glasgow. Johnstone’s famous triangle distinguishing macroscopic, submicroscopic, and symbolic chemistry, and its connection with the multiple representational nature of the subject (14), has had, and continues to have a great influence on chemistry education (15). In addition, his extended work on the effect of working memory and information processing on students’ dealing with science problem solving (16) has affected much of my subsequent work. Throughout my career my aim has been two-fold: on the one hand to promote chemistry education through research, and on the other hand, to make the results of such research discernible in my native country, Greece, and in this way to upgrade Greek chemistry education research and practice, of which I dare say, I have been the founder. Over the years, many other internationally recognized Greek chemistry educators have followed my example, having made, and are still making substantial contributions to our discipline. See Appendix 1 for a short description of the contribution of each of these scholars to international chemistry education. Note that the majority of the people who are listed in Appendix 1 are based in education departments, while those based in chemistry departments were not 95

initially appointed in positions of chemistry education (with the only exception of Katerina Salta, who however is a part-time research and teaching associate). This is a consequence of the sad fact that in Greece there are no secondary education departments but only primary and infant education departments. To make matters worse, Greek chemistry departments have, so far, shown little interest in creating positions in chemistry education, assuming that chemistry education is not relevant to the science of chemistry and even that it is not a scientific discipline at all! It is noteworthy and sad that even the Departments of Chemistry of the University of Athens and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, which have been running the graduate program DiCheNET for many years, have been reluctant, in recent years, to create or to fill staff positions in chemistry education. (For information about DiCheNET, see Appendix 2, along with a discussion of chemistry teachers’ preparation in Greece.) In addition, to their participation in international CER, all the listed Greek scholars have made substantial contributions to the practice of chemistry education in Greece, through their teaching at universities, the writing of books in Greek, and their participation in Greek science and chemistry education conferences and seminars at both primary and secondary levels. In the remainder of this chapter, I will focus on a number of my own studies, and some relevant curriculum and educational material and initiatives (published in Greek) that relate directly to Greek chemistry education, but which, at the same time, have an international dimension and interest. In connection to these challenges and achievements, I will also expose a number of barriers to the development of chemistry education in Greece. Finally, I will discuss some perspectives for international chemistry education.

Chemistry in the Greek Junior High School In most countries, including Greece, junior high school / lower secondary education (‘gymnasion’) involves three grades (7th, 8th, and 9th) – ages 11-14. Chemistry is taught in the 8th and the 9th grades for one 45-minute period per week. My first education research study in 1984 (in Greek) reported a survey of Greek teachers’ perception of the difficulty of the various chemistry topics that were covered at the time (the 1980s). The findings confirmed that the stoichiometry topics and concepts that were included then in the curriculum and textbooks (RAM, RMM, mole, molar volume, balancing chemical equations, and proportional reasoning in stoichiometric calculations) were seen as the most difficult ones. Other difficult topics for the 8th grade included: the periodic table; ionic and covalent bonds; structural and electronic formulas of covalent compounds; single-atom ions; multi-atom ions; ionic and molecular reactions; simple and double substitution reactions. To explain these findings, I invoked Piagetian theory. (Later, when I was equipped with a richer theoretical armament, in addition to Piaget’s ideas, I also employed Ausubel’s theory of meaningful learning, information processing theory, and the alternative ideas framework, to justify students’ conceptual difficulties relating to the structural concepts of matter (17).) Based on the findings, I made proposals in 1984 for a revised Greek 96

secondary chemistry curriculum, which placed the emphasis on the macroscopic study of various topics, and maintained the concepts of molecule and atom and of chemical notation, but without including atomic structure and bonding. In addition, I recommended avoiding complicated reactions without actual relevance to everyday life. In 2001, I presented second thoughts of mine about lower secondary chemistry, and distinguished the aims of the course into three classes: (1) aims of theoretical/formal chemistry; (2) aims of practical abilities; (3) aims of chemistry in context. Finally, through a research study, I used a three-cycle method, which went separately over the macroscopic, the symbolic and the submicroscopic levels of chemistry, and concluded that this approach could be considered as a good method for junior high school chemistry (18). In the macro-cycle, students become familiar with chemical substances and their properties. Central here is the use of experiment, while chemical notation as well as atoms and molecules are not included. Applying the spiral curriculum, the symbolic cycle covers the same course material, but adds chemical formulas and equations. Finally, the submicro-cycle brings atoms and molecules into play. Such an approach is in line with Johnstone’s ideas about chemistry learning and chemistry curricula, according to which, “there is plenty of good science to be learned without the ‘interference’ of submicro considerations”, so “curriculum designers and textbook writers should consider the need for a considerable introductory period in which students get familiar with thinking in a scientific way through the use of macro and tangible experiences only, … , dealing with the things of every day experience (19)”. A New Program of Studies and New Textbook Packages (1997-1998) In 1997-98, a new program of studies for Greek lower secondary chemistry was introduced and new textbook packages, that adopted the proposals of educational research, were written. This was pleasing and encouraging. The program retained atoms and molecules, but avoided the details of atomic and molecular structure. Also, a complete removal of stoichiometry was implemented. An integral part of the new program was the execution of a number of experiments by the students, with laboratory manuals included in the book packages. It was apparent that the recommendations of CER had finally begun to take root in the Greek educational system. The Latest Revision of the Formal Curriculum in Greece (2014) – Chemistry for 7th and 8th Grades Recently, I was the coordinator of a committee that worked out a new program of studies for chemistry for the 8th and 9th grades in Greece, within the project “Education and Lifelong Education – New School (21st Century School)”. The aims of the new program are to encourage students to develop a liking for the chemistry course through its many useful applications, and to provide the necessary basic knowledge, which will help them to move on to the more advanced senior high school chemistry course. The main operations and tools were: (i) the re-arrangement of topics and a rational organization of the material; 97

(ii) a combination of the change of the program with proper educational material (print and electronic). The methodology combines the macroscopic approach with the submicroscopic and symbolic levels of chemistry, conceptual understanding, inquiry learning, laboratory teaching, and connection with everyday life. See Table 1 for the contents and the organization of this course. A major, continuing problem still exists, in that chemistry has always been allocated much less teaching time than either physics or biology (under half the time allocated to physics)! At the macroscopic level (before introducing atoms and molecules), emphasis is placed on distinguishing between substances and mixtures of substances, the separation of mixtures into their component substances, and the concept of substance (on the basis of fixed physical constants). Following these, we study chemical reactions, first between solid substances (lead nitrate plus potassium iodide) (20), and then the thermal decomposition of solid substances [calcium carbonate, mercury(II) oxide, sugar]. I consider also the use of the mass spectrometer (the ‘chemist’s elemental analyzer’) to be very useful for determining if a given substance is a chemical element or a chemical compound, as proposed by Taber (21). Chemical reactions in aqueous solutions [e.g. lead nitrate (aq) plus potassium iodide (aq)] are studied in the unit “From water to solutions”, while the classic experiment of the electrolysis of water is used to introduce the concept of atom. (In addition, the thermal decomposition of water into its constituent elements is also considered.)

Table 1. Contents and organization of chemistry for the Greek 8th and 9th grades (2014) Chemistry for the 8th grade (One period per week / 26 periods of 45 minutes each) Introduction: Materials and their physical states (2 periods). (1) From soil and subsoil to chemical substances (5 periods). (2) From water to solutions (5 periods). (3) From water to atoms – From the macroworld to the microworld (7 periods). (4) From air to oxygen and to combustions (4 periods). (5) Pollution of the environment and how to deal with it. (3 periods). Chemistry for the 9th grade (One period per week / 26 periods of 45 minutes each) Introduction: Classification of the elements – Periodic table (2 periods). (1) The chemistry of carbon and of life (9 periods). (2) Acids, bases and salts (10 periods). (3) Elements with a special interest for chemistry and for everyday life (5 periods).

Regarding the program for the 9th grade, a main feature is that, in accordance with Johnstone’s practice and arguments, the teaching of organic chemistry precedes that of acid-base chemistry and of the study of some chemical elements and their properties. As a matter of fact, organic chemistry involves only a few elements, and bonding in organic compounds is relatively simple: a carbon atom makes four bonds; a hydrogen atom makes one bond; an oxygen atom makes two bonds; and a nitrogen atom makes three bonds (5, 22). 98

Other Attempts at Reform of the Junior High School: An Integrated Science Program for the 7th Grade Reference was made above about the minor role given to chemistry in junior high school, in comparison with physics and biology. As a matter of fact, the ‘rivalry’ among the three science subjects for dominance in secondary education is a serious problem in Greece (23). To overcome this deficiency, but also to align with widely applied international practices, I proposed in the late 1990s an integrated program of physics and chemistry for the 7th grade. A relevant book (in Greek), which includes experiments, theory, simple-knowledge and more demanding (critical-thinking) questions was written (24). In subsequent work, biology lessons were incorporated into each of the ten units of the above book of integrated physics and chemistry. Unfortunately, a recent (2014) proposal of mine to introduce an integrated science course (physics and chemistry, or physics, chemistry and biology) into Greek junior high schools was not accepted. Chemistry Course for the 8th Grade A novel introductory lower-secondary chemistry course (for the 8th grade) that sought to apply the theories of science education to support conceptual/meaningful learning and to develop a teaching methodology that encourages active and inquiry forms of learning was proposed (25). The program is made of six units (matter and soil, water, chemical reactions, air, molecules, atoms) that contain twenty-four lessons. Special emphasis is paid to the meaningful introduction of the concepts of molecule and atom, which is delayed until the last two units of the course (see the relevant lessons in Table 2). A textbook was written and subjected to a preliminary evaluation (25).

Table 2. Contents (lessons) of the units on molecules and atoms for the 8th grade UNIT E. Molecules

UNIT F. Atoms

(17) The concept of molecule in solids and liquids (18) Ever-moving molecules (19) The concept of molecule in gases

(20) The first two laws of chemistry (21) The concept of atom (22) Chemical formulas and the mole concept (23) The concept of chemical equation

Chemistry in the Greek Senior High School As in many countries, senior high school/upper secondary education (‘lykeion’) in Greece involves three grades (10th, 11th, and 12th) – ages 15-18. The 10th grade is an orientation year, with common curriculum for all students, while in the 11th and the 12th grades, in addition to general education subjects, students also follow a specialized stream of study. In the 10th and 11th grades, chemistry is 99

taught as an independent subject as part of general education for two 45-minute periods per week , while in the 12th grade it is taught for three periods each week but only as a special subject within one of the three specific streams (the stream of ‘Positive Studies’, empasizing mathematics and science subjects and preparing students for tertiary education courses in science, engineering, health, and agro schools of study) (26). A major problem with senior high school is that, especially during the 11th and 12th grades, the students’ main objective is to prepare for the national matriculation examinations taking place at the end of the 12th grade, and this leads to algorithmic and meaningless teaching and learning, adapted to the standardized examination questions, with emphasis on formalistic content and algorithmic numerical exercises. A lack of confidence in the education being provided in public senior high schools, when compared to the better student preparation being provided in paid-for special private schools (‘frontisteria’), is an unfortunate outcome. Successive governments, over many years, have attempted in vain to rectify this situation. Three of my early studies (published in Greek, one in 1981, and two in 1985) identified Greek students’ strengths and difficulties with chemistry in senior high school, based on the testing of beginning first-year chemistry students. Difficulties were detected with: the naming of compounds and the writing of chemical formulas; ionic and covalent compounds; polar and non-polar compounds; ionic and molecular reactions; oxidation numbers. A particularly interesting misconception was also identified: Le Chatelier’s principle was being applied to reaction rate, when actually it can only be used to predict the direction of a reaction. This misconception was subsequently reported in 1991 and 2010 (27, 28), in the anglophone literature. Erroneous thinking was also used by some students, who appeared to believe that as long as the products of a reaction were legitimate substances, then the resulting reaction was acceptable (it could actually occur), as the following examples demonstrate:

Note that the above equations are balanced correctly. In 1989, I published a book in Greek on “Topics of Physics and Chemistry Teaching in Secondary Education”, with a 2nd edition in 1991, which included the main results of my early research studies about Greek junior and senior high school chemistry. States-of-Matter Approach (SOMA) and Context-Based Approach to Senior High School Chemistry Within a project for revising the upper secondary curricula in Greece in the late 1990s, the present author, as member of a special committee, contributed to a proposal for a chemistry program for all students in the 10th and 11th grades. For 100

the 10th grade, chemistry was introduced through the separate study of the three states of matter: the ‘States-Of-Matter Approach’ (SOMA) (29). There are three major units in the program, namely: (A) Air, gases, and the gaseous state; (B) Salt, salts, and the solid state; (C) Water, liquids, and the liquid state. Table 3 shows the contents of each unit. A relevant book was written, which was then submitted to a preliminary evaluation by teachers (30).

Table 3. Contents of SOMA approach for 10th grade chemistry UNIT A: Air, Gases, and the Gaseous State (A6) Ideal gas and its state equation (A7) Hydrocarbons and combustion reactions (A8) Air pollution, greenhouse effect, depletion of ozone layer

(A1) Atmospheric air (A2) Atoms and atomic structure (A3) Molecules and molecular structure (A4) Chemical reactions (A5) Oxygen and inert gases

UNIT B: Salt, Salts, and the Solid State (B3) Molecular solids (B4) Metals (B5) Solid waste and its management

(B1) Salt and the crystal structure (B2) Salts, metal oxides, and metal hydroxides

UNIT C: Water, Liquids, and the Liquid State (C1) Role of liquid state for life (C2) Temperature range for the liquid state (C3) Intermolecular forces (C4) Water and hydrogen bonding (C5) Bromine and mercury: the only liquid elements (C6) Liquid organic compounds

(C7) Solutions, aqueous solutions of ionic compounds, double displacement reactions, molarity (C8) Colligative properties of solutions (C9) Acids and bases – Chemical reactions in aqueous solutions (C10) Drinking water, water quality, water purification, water waste treatment, water pollution, acid rain

For the 11th grade, the program moved into the connection of chemistry with life and its applications. A book was recently written, which covers this course. Based on the available instructional time and on the evaluation of the book by experienced chemistry teachers, I suggested the organization of material into three major units: (A) Chemistry and energy; (B) Organic chemistry; (C) Chemistry and life. Table 4 shows the contents of each unit. (Material on nuclear energy and renewable forms of energy has been omitted in this proposal.) Unfortunately, the curriculum proposed in 1999 was turned down by government administrators, responding to conservative opinions and interests, so chemistry in senior high school continues to this day to follow a more-or-less traditional approach, instead of a modernized approach such as that described above. However, with the passing of time and the influence of international trends, many encouraging improvements are to be found in the textbooks.

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Table 4. Material and its organization of chemistry for the 11th grade UNIT B Organic chemistry

UNIT A Chemistry and Energy (A1) Energy transfer in chemical reactions (A2) Fuels (A3) Electrochemical energy

(B1) Hydrocarbons (B2) Polymers, plastics, and new materials (B3) Alcohols – ethers – aldehydes and ketones – acids and esters

UNIT C Chemistry and life (C1) (Pharmaceutical) Drugs (C2) Foods and nutrition

Relevant Chemistry Education Under relevant chemistry education several connotations come to mind, for instance, (i) the embedding of science into contexts connected to students’ lives, (ii) the meeting of student needs, and (iii) the inclusion of real-life applications for individuals and society (31). Relevant chemistry education is close to so-called “context-based chemistry education”, but is more general (32). Two of my studies, published in Greek, on the connection of the taught chemistry with students’ everyday lives − one on junior (in 1987) and the other (in 1991) on senior Greek high school − revealed very poor knowledge. For instance, 97% of junior students ignored the content of a liquefied-gas bottle, 96% ignored the content of a fire extinguisher, 89% could not explain what a bleaching liquid was, and 81% were unsure of what petrol is. In the case of senior students, 77% ignored the gas or gases contained in a liquefied gas, 64% the content of a fire extinguisher, 60% failed to appreciate that sulfuric acid is the electrolyte in lead batteries, and 57% that benzoic acid is a common food preservative. Chemistry Dimension of the PARSEL Modules The European project PARSEL (“Popularity And Relevance of Science Education for scientific Literacy”), of which I was scientifically responsible for Greece, has produced educational materials aiming to promote scientific literacy and to enhance popularity and relevance of science teaching and learning (33). The materials in the form of modules (e.g. Growing plants: does the soil matter?; Milk: keep refrigerated; Salt: the good, the bad, and the tasty; Should vegetable oil be used as fuel?) cover a range of student levels (7th Grade and upwards) and science subjects, and can be conveniently used for project-type of work by the students.

Looking to the Future Chemistry, as it is currently taught and tested by many if not most teachers, in Greece and beyond, places the emphasis on learning rules and algorithms, which enable conscientious students to respond with success to examination questions, including relatively complicated computational exercises. Examples of such ‘dexterity’ are the placing of electrons in electron shells and subshells or 102

in atomic orbitals, the rote learning of oxidation numbers of the elements, the writing of chemical formulas, the balancing of chemical equations, the calculation of heats of reactions, etc. If we turn, however, to consider matters of conceptual understanding, we realize that our students are, as a rule, ignorant and cannot answer questions such as: why chlorine displays so many oxidation numbers, why spontaneous endothermic reactions can occur, and why reactions, in general, lead to equilibrium? For too long, we have continued to present to our students concepts relating to the structure of matter as absolute truths, underpinning the foundations of chemistry. It is surely time for us, to seek rather to guide and help students to link the macroscopic and submicroscopic levels of chemistry through experiments and demonstrations (34). Further, instead of expecting students to accept the teacher’s word, we should look to provide opportunities for students, themselves, to arrive at answers to questions, such as: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

How do we know that molecules and atoms exist? What data forced us to accept that the molecules of several elements are diatomic? How are the chemical formulas for compounds determined? How did we discover the structure of the atom and nucleus? How were the electric charge and the mass of the electron measured? How were the atomic numbers of the elements determined? On what experimental evidence was the placing of electrons in shells and in orbitals based? What is an atomic or a molecular orbital? How do we know that atoms in molecules vibrate, and that molecules in gases and liquids rotate?

Moving further from the above formalistic issues of chemistry, we have also to consider current and future societal, political, health, environmental, economic, and ethical issues, which relate to chemistry and have a great impact on the whole of our planet and its atmosphere. Examples of such issues are the contribution of chemistry and biochemistry to the prevention and the curing of diseases, the control of chemical processes for cost and benefit, and the transport and fate of chemicals into the environment. Chemistry teaching and learning will definitely have a great role to play in our global future.

Post Script: A Personal Retrospective Comment on Relevant Chemistry Education In 1988, influenced greatly by the 1983 contextual approach to chemistry by Sherman and Sherman (35). I gave a presentation to a Greek conference about “chemistry and tomorrow’s citizens”, and “chemistry as a general education subject at the threshold of the 21th century”. The following were the concluding comments to my presentation: 103

“We live in a chemical world, … [where] a general public, … adopts an attitude hostile to chemistry, (where) people are scared by the word ‘chemistry’… It is a necessity that this public … considers critically the chemical view of life, (and) the capabilities and the problems of chemistry. [In this way], chemistry will become an interesting, practical, useful subject, in one word, a most urgent subject”.

Appendix 1: Greek Chemistry Educators and Their Contribution to International Chemistry Education NOTICE: This list includes only scholars whose first degree is in chemistry or in chemical engineering, and have an autonomous presence in chemistry education research (CER). In addition to these, many other Greek colleagues (mostly physicists) have produced chemistry-related research work, often in collaboration with chemistry educators from the list below. Note also that only highlights of research are presented here. The interested reader should consult academic sources such as Google Scholar Citations and/or ResearchGate. Hatzinikita, Vassilia (School of Humanities, Hellenic Open University). Her earlier publications dealt with pupils’ understanding and ideas about changes of matter and about combustion. Her latest work focuses on international competitions, such as PISA and the achievement of Greek students in them. In one study, a comparison was carried out of assessment tasks used in the Greek school context with PISA test items, which use graphs and photographs of familiar entities to communicate scientific information in everyday life. Koulaidis, Vasilis (Department of Social and Educational Policy, University of Peloponnese). His early work dealt with philosophy/epistemology of science, and in particular science teachers’ views about scientific knowledge, the nature of the scientific method, the criteria for the demarcation of science from non-science, the nature of change in scientific knowledge, and the status of scientific knowledge. Other work includes studies of pupils’ ideas, such as those involving changes of state and of matter, analysis of textbooks and press articles about science and technology, as well as contextual issues such as the depletion of the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect. Papageorgiou, George (Department of Primary Level Education, Democritus University of Thrace). His research focuses on students’ and teachers’ ideas concerning the particulate nature of matter, with special emphasis paid to understanding the concept of ‘substance’ and its structure, and in particular on the development of ideas about particles by students in primary education. With Philip Johnson, he developed a particle model that could be applied progressively in primary and then in secondary education. Regarding secondary education, his investigations concerned the nature of knowledge (fragmented v. coherent) about the structure of matter and the role of individual differences. Salta, Katerina (Secondary Education and Department of Chemistry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens). The focal points of her research are: (a) the affective dimensions of chemistry learning; (b) students’ ideas concerning chemistry concepts; (c) strategies used in chemistry problem solving; 104

(d) chemical representations in educational resources; (e) systems thinking. She and her colleagues developed instruments to measure chemistry-specific affective traits, including attitudes and motivation. She also developed a set of criteria to evaluate chemical representations in school textbooks. In other studies, she focused on conceptual versus algorithmic problem solving with regard to conservation of matter in chemistry, and on schemes to investigate students’ systems thinking level within organic chemistry. Sigalas, Michael (Department of Chemistry, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki). In parallel with his research on quantum and computational chemistry, that on chemistry education focuses on the design, development, application and evaluation of educational software for secondary and tertiary education. His team has developed the ‘3DNormalModes’ and ‘3DΜolecularSymmetry’ software for the interactive visualization and three-dimensional perception of vibrational spectra of molecules and molecular symmetry respectively. He has also developed a technology enhanced hybrid course on molecular symmetry, and has investigated students’ ability to transform and translate 2D molecular diagrammatic representations, and their relationship to spatial ability and prior chemistry knowledge. Stamovlasis, Dimitrios (Department of Philosophy and Education, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki). His research focuses on methodological issues underpinning educational investigations. His main interests are in the application of nonlinear methods and complexity theory, which comprise a new emerging research paradigm. The application of catastrophe theory brought into light various aspects of the processes involved in chemistry problem solving and better interpretations of empirical data. He also examined the effects of cognitive variables on conceptual understanding. In addition, he has contributed to the coherent versus fragmented knowledge hypothesis, and has published work on interdisciplinary approaches to teaching chemistry and art. Stavridou, Heleni (retired, Department of Primary Education, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki). Her work concerned the concept of chemical reaction and the problematic distinction by secondary students between physical and chemical phenomena. Other studies dealt with students’ initial conceptions and conceptual development of the chemical substance concept, acid rain and water and air pollution in primary education, as well as the development of a computer learning environment about chemical equilibrium. Stavrou, Dimitris (Department of Primary Education, University of Crete). His chemistry-related work focuses on the educational reconstruction of modern science topics, especially on teaching issues related to nanoscience and nonlinear systems. He has studied senior high school students’ learning processes on nonlinear systems (deterministic chaos, self-organization and fractals), pre-service teachers’ understanding about size dependent properties at the nanoscale, and has developed teaching material on nanoscience and nanotechnology for primary and upper secondary education. Tsaparlis, Georgios (emeritus, Department of Chemistry, University of Ioannina). Two major areas of his research were on students’ conceptual understanding of quantum chemistry and on problem solving in science education (especially about the effect of cognitive factors and the application of 105

nonlinear methodologies in the analysis of problem solving data). Other research involved higher-order cognitive skills (HOCS), teaching and learning physical chemistry, chemical concepts, secondary chemistry curricula, and instructional methodologies. He was the organizer of the “5th European Conference on Research in Chemical Education” (ECRICE) (Ioannina, Greece, 1999) and of an international symposium on structural concepts of matter (Athens, Greece, 2010) (36). Finally, he was founding editor (2000-2004) and, from 2005 until 2011, joint editor of the journal Chemistry Education Research and Practice (37). Tzougraki, Chryssa (emeritus, Department of Chemistry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens). Her work in chemistry education (following and subsequently running in parallel with her research in bioorganic chemistry) focused initially on the development and application of valid and reliable instruments for measuring secondary education students’ attitudes toward chemistry, the correlation of the attitudes with achievement in chemistry, and the conceptual versus algorithmic problem-solving ability. She has also investigated systemic assessment questions for assessing high school students’ meaningful understanding of organic reactions. Other research deals with chemical representations in school textbooks and with the visual/spatial and analytic strategies used by students in organic chemistry.

Appendix 2: Chemistry Teacher Preparation in Greece Despite the fortunate fact that a considerable number of highly qualified general education and subject-specific education staff are available at universities in Greece (for chemistry educators, see Appendix 1), a persisting and most astonishing problem is that, to this day, secondary teachers in Greece do not receive any special training and preparation (including practical training) before becoming teachers. They are merely required to hold a subject specific (language, history, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, etc.) degree. However, since the beginning of the 21st century, teacher candidates in Greece have been required to pass a special state-run written examination/competition, which includes as examined subjects not only disciplinary ones (chemistry, physics, biology, and geology for chemistry graduates), but also two educational subjects: (i) general education and (ii) subject specific education (for chemists: science education in all four science subjects, with greater weight allocated to chemistry education). Unfortunately, very often, candidates have not been taught any education (general or specific) courses during their first degree. Where such courses are available, they are offered only as optional selective courses. Even sadder is the fact that an encouraging development has not so far been implemented: since the late 1990s, successive governments have passed legislation making it compulsory for teacher candidates to have obtained a ‘Certificate of Pedagogic and Education Qualification’ (CPEQ), after taking a course of minimum duration of one-semester, which should be taught and provided by universities within first degree programs. Unfortunately, such courses have failed to materialize, mainly either because of a lack of collaboration by universities (especially by subject specific departments) or by the tendency of 106

successive governments and even successive ministers of education to postpone implementation of such CPEQ programs, in order to bring about changes and ‘improvements’ to the programs. The last such legislation was introduced in 2011, was voted for by an overwhelming parliamentary majority, and required prospective teachers who entered universities starting from 2013 onwards, to have obtained the CPEQ before applying for participation in the teacher selection competition. This law has, however, never been applied in practice, with the current Greek government deciding that entering the teaching profession should be a conscious choice that should only be made by individuals after they have obtained their first degrees. It has therefore been decided to suspend the application of the 2011 law in order to introduce a new ‘improved’ CPEQ, which will be run by universities as a postgraduate course. To cut a long story short, it has been fortunate that practicing and prospective chemistry teachers in Greece have had the opportunity to attend the “Chemistry Education and New Educational Technologies” (DiCheNET) graduate program (see below) since the late 1990s. This provides an excellent preparation for prospective chemistry teachers, apart from the fact that it does not include any training for practical work. The DiCheNET Graduate Program The DiCheNET program is an inter-university postgraduate program, which was established by Chryssa Tzougraki (who was director of the program for 14 years), in collaboration with Michael Sigalas, Georgios Tsaparlis, and the late Nicolaos Spyrellis, and which has been running since 1998 in the Departments of Chemistry of the Universities of Athens and Thessaloniki (38). DiCheNET is a two-year program leading to a master’s degree. It involves both taught courses and the carrying out and writing up of a CER project. Training in new educational technologies is a strong feature of the program, along with other courses in general and science/chemistry education; in addition the applications of chemistry in industry and society were strongly emphasized. Some 250 people have completed this course to date, and through their studies have become highly qualified practicing or prospective secondary chemistry teachers, able to contribute to the application of new educational methodologies in chemistry teaching in Greece. Some of them have gone on to complete a doctor of philosophy degree in chemistry education at one of the collaborating chemistry departments, and even to continue as education researchers.

Acknowledgments The author wishes to thank the Greek chemistry educators who supplied him with information about their contribution to international chemistry education research, on which the content of Appendix 1 is based. He is also grateful to Dr Bill Byers who read the manuscript and made suggestions for a better presentation. 107

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Taber, K. S. Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. 2015, 16, 6–8. Herron, J. D. J. Chem. Educ. 1975, 52, 146–150. Herron, J. D. J. Chem. Educ. 1978, 55, 165–170. Gabel, D. L. J. Chem. Educ. 1999, 76, 548–554. Johnstone, A. H. Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. 2000, 1, 9–15(2000). Herron, J. D.; Nurrenburn, N. C. J. Chem. Educ. 1999, 76, 1354–1361. Bunce, D.; Gabel, D.; Herron, J. D.; Jones, L. J. Chem. Educ. 1994, 71, 850–82. de Jong, O.; Schmidt, H.-J.; Burger, N.; Eybe, H. Univ. Chem. Educ. 1999, 3, 28–30. Bunce, D. M.; Cole, R. S., Eds.; Nuts and Bolts of Chemical Education Research; ACS Symposium Series 976; American Chemical Society/Oxford University Press: Washington, DC, 2008. Bunce, D. M.; Cole, R. S., Eds.; Tools of Chemistry Education Research; ACS Symposium Series 1166; American Chemical Society/Oxford University Press: Washington, DC, 2014. Singer, S. R.; Nielsen, N. R.; Schweingruber, H. A., Eds.; Discipline-Based Education Research: Understanding and Improving Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering; National Academies Press: Washington, DC, 2012. Available for free at https://www.nap.edu/catalog/ 13362/discipline-based-education-research-understanding-and-improvinglearning-in-undergraduate (accessed Feb 2018). Bodner, G. J. Chem. Educ. 2001, 78, 1107. Shayer, M.; Adey, P. Toward a Science of Science Teaching; Heinman: London, 1981. Johnstone, A. H.; Wham, A. J. B. Educ. Chem. 1982, 19, 71–73. Gilbert, J. K.; Treagust, D., Eds.; Multiple Representations in Chemical Education; Springer: Dordrecht, the Netherlands, 2009; pp 109–136. Johnstone, A. H. J. Chem. Educ. 1984, 61, 847–849. Tsaparlis, G. J. Chem. Educ. 1997, 74, 922–925. Georgiadou, A.; Tsaparlis, G. Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. 2000, 1, 277–289. Johnstone, A. H. Science Education: We Know the Answers, Let’s Look at the Problems. In Proceedings of the 5th Greek Conference “Science Education and New Technologies in Education”; Katsikis, A.; Kotsis, K., Mikropoulos, A.; Tsaparlis, G., Eds.; University of Ioannina: Ioannina, Greece, 2007; Vol. 1, pp 1–11. http://kodipheet.chem.uoi.gr/fifth_conf/ pdf_synedriou/teyxos_A/1_kentrikes_omilies/1_KO-4-Johnstone.pdf (accessed Feb 2018) de Vos, W.; Verdonk, A. H. J. Chem. Educ. 1985, 62, 238–240. Taber K. S. Key Concepts in Chemistry. In Teaching Secondary Chemistry; 2nd ed.; Taber, K. S., Ed.; Association for Science Education/Hodder Education: London, 2012; pp 1–47. Johnstone, A. H.; Morrison T. I.; Reid. N. Chemistry about Us; Heinmann Educational Books: London, 1981. 108

23. Tsaparlis, G. The Rivalry among the Separate Science Subjects for Dominance in Secondary Education: The Case of Greece and beyond. In Science Education in Context; Coll. R. K.; Taylor, N., Eds.; Sense: Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2008; pp 145−159. 24. Tsaparlis, G.; Kampourakis, C. Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. 2000, 1, 281–294. 25. Tsaparlis, G.; Kolioulis, D.; Pappa, E. Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. 2010, 11, 107–117(plus Supplementary Data). 26. The current Greek government is proposing a change in the matriculation examinations (to take effect from the year 2020), with an intension to reduce the examined special subjects from four to three. Such a change is likely to undermine the place and role of chemistry in senior high school. 27. Banerjee, A. C. Int. J. Sci. Educ. 1991, 13, 487–494. 28. Sozbilir , M.; Pinarbasi, T.; Canpolatm, N. Euras. J. Math. Sci. Tech. Educ. 2010, 6, 111–120. 29. Tsaparlis, G. Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. 2000, 1, 161–168. 30. Tsaparlis, G.; Pyrgas E. The States-Of-Matter Approach (SOMA) to HighSchool Chemistry: Textbook and Evaluation By Teachers. In e-Proceedings of the ESERA 2011 Conference; Strand 4; Bruguière, C.; Tiberghien, A.; Clément, P., Eds.; Lyon, France, 2011. http://www.esera.org/publications/ esera-conference-proceedings (accessed Feb 2018) 31. Eilks I.; Hofstein A., Eds. Relevant Chemistry Education; Sense: Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2015. 32. The importance of relevance and context-based approaches to science education is made evident by the existence of three international educational projects that aim at enhancing students’ interest in science and technology: “Relevance Of Science Education” (ROSE); “Popularity And Relevance of Science Education for Scientific Literacy” (PARSEL); and “Professional Reflection Oriented Focus on Inquiry-based Learning and Education through Science” (PROFILES). 33. The PARSEL materials have been developed by a consortium involving eight European universities [from Estonia, Denmark, Germany (2), Greece, Israel, Portugal and Sweden] and the “International Council of Associations for Science Education” (ICASE) (UK). They are available free of charge in English (and selections of them in a number of other languages, including Greek) at http://icaseonline.net/parsel/www.parsel.uni-kiel.de/ cms/indexe435.html?id=home (accessed Feb 2018) 34. Tsaparlis, G. Linking the Macro with the Submicro Levels of Chemistry: Demonstrations and Experiments that can contribute to Active/Meaningful/ Conceptual Learning. In Learning with Understanding in the Chemistry Classroom; Devetak, I.; Glažar, S., Eds.; Springer: Dordrechet, The Netherlands, 2014; pp 41–61. 35. Sherman, A.; Sherman, S. J. Chemistry and Our Changing World; PrenticeHall: New Jersey, 1983. 36. Tsaparlis, G.; Sevian, H., Eds.; Concepts of Matter in Science Education; Vol. 19; Innovations in Science Education and Technology Series; Springer: Dordrechet, The Netherlands, 2013. 109

37. The journal Chemistry Education Research and Practice, which is a free to access electronic journal, started its publication from the University of Ioannina in 2000, following the 5th ECRICE conference: http://www.uoi.gr/ cerp (accessed Feb 2018). Since 2005 it has been published by the Royal Society of Chemistry: http://www.rsc.org/journals-books-databases/aboutjournals/chemistry-education-research-practice. 38. Tzougraki, C.; Sigalas, M. P.; Tsaparlis, G.; Spyrellis, N. Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. 2000, 1, 405–410.

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Chapter 8

Visualizations in High School Chemistry Textbooks Used in Turkey Sevil Akaygun* Department of Mathematics and Science Education, Bogazici University, 34342, Istanbul, Turkey *E-mail: [email protected].

Textbooks have been the main materials used in chemistry classes because many teachers rely on textbooks in most of their instruction. As the students are heavily exposed to the content and the visual representations in the textooks, it is important to take a closer look at what the visualizations included in the textbooks reveal. This study aimed to investigate the visual representations used in 9th grade chemisty textbooks used in Turkey. A total of nine chemistry textbooks used in high schools in Turkey were analyzed for this study. Four of the textbooks were written by Turkish authors in Turkish, one of them was written by Turkish authors in English, and four of them were written by foreign authors in English. The visualizations in all nine textbooks were compared in terms of the quantity and the percentage distribution of each type of representation (macroscopic, symbolic, particulate, multiple, hybrid, mixed, integrated or combined), and the attributes of the particulate visualizations (structure or process). The results of the analysis revealed that the percentage of macroscopic visualizations was the most common type of representation in eight out of nine textbooks. Despite the fact that five of the textbooks included more visualizations depicting processes in the unit of Interactions Among the Chemical Species, particulate visualizations depicting structures were dominant in all the textbooks. Visualizations are important tools for learning chemistry; thus careful planning and inclusion can be suggested.

© 2018 American Chemical Society

Introduction We live in a visual world where all of us are exposed to lots of visualizations in daily life on a website we visit, on the window of a train we take, on a magazine we read. We try to make sense of what all these visualizations represent because they usually simplify or schematize information. The word visualization refers to the systematic and focused visual display of information in the form of tables, diagrams, models and graphs (1). Visualizations, or external visualizations, as described by Gobert (2005) are the representations typically used for learning (2). Frederiksen & Breuleux (1988) argue that the ones used in science are semantically-rich because of being specific for a particular domain, and thus involve their own symbol systems (3). Yet, the comprehension of semantically-rich visualizations seem to be more complex than the iconic representations (2), might be due to their features such as color, spatial orientation, or the content. In chemistry, visualizations have become important because they convey information about the visible and invisible chemical phenomena. They usually represent structures, behaviors, or processes involved in chemical phenomena. In learning chemistry, students are exposed to visualizations in the form of macroscopic, symbolic, and particulate levels of representations (4, 5). Macroscopic representations are the ones that represent the observable and tangible depictions, such as photographs; symbolic ones include the symbols, equations, mathematical representations, such as structural formula of benzene; and particulate ones are the ones depicting atoms, molecules or ions, such as drawings showing particles. Visualizations representing particulate level also include attributes such as a structure, (e.g. an atomic model), or a process (e.g. formation of ionic bonding) (6). During the process of understanding, students are mentally engaged with the chemical phenomena through the use of different type of visual representations (5), and navigate between them (7). In other words, students try to make sense out of these visualizations, therefore, they should be carefully selected and introduced to students. Textbooks have been important both for students and teachers. They have been accepted as the main resource of science instruction (8–10). Many teachers plan their classes according to the content of the textbooks (11). Many students read their textbooks to learn the content (9). Considering the nature of chemistry (4), one of the main components of chemistry textbooks is the visualizations (10). It has been suggested that texbook visualizations help students understand the content well (12, 13) and avoid misconceptions (14). However, textbook visualizations also have potential to create confusion (15). Considering the role of visualizations in understanding chemistry, it is worth taking a closer look at the ones included in the textbooks. In many studies, visualizations included in chemistry textbooks were analysed with respect to various aspects (10, 12, 16, 17). Gkitzia et. al. developed five criteria for the analysis of chemical representations, and used them to evaluate five textbooks used in Greece. These criteria include type of the representation, interpretation of the surface features, their relationship to the text, the existence and the properties of a caption, and the degree of correlation between the components comprising 112

a multiple representation (12). The same evaluation criteria, completely or partially, were used to analyse the visualizations found in the 12 most preferred chemistry textbooks used in the USA (10), and the ones representing particulate nature of matter, found in 8 middle school science (16) and chemistry textbooks (17) used in Turkey. Due to the nature of chemistry, the criterion of types of the visual representations is especially relevant to the analysis of visualizations depicting chemical prhenomena. Therefore, it is important to identify whether the visualization represents macroscopic, symbolic or particulate levels. According to Johnstone (4), these three levels of representations should be interrelated so that the students can make connections amongs them and better conceptualize chemical phenomena. Thus, if these levels are presented together, the nature of chemical phenomena would be better described (12). Therefore, some of the chemistry visualizations include more than one level of representations to help students make better connections. Gkitzia et. al (2011) described these combinations as multiple, which depict a chemical phenomenon simultaneously at two or three levels; hybrid, which include characteristics of two or three levels of chemistry coexist complementing each other forming one representation; mixed where characteristics of a level (macro, particulate, symbolic) and characteristics of another type of depiction, such as analogy, coexist (12). Types of representations displayed by the visualizations in chemisty textbooks might affect students’ understandings; thus they have been taken under the lens of researchers in various countries. Regarding the analysis of five chemistry textbooks used in Greece, Gkitzia et. Al (12) reported that the majority of the visual representations included in textbooks were macroscopic (23.6%) and symbolic (23.6%), followed by multiple (21.8%), particulate (19.1%), hybrid (10.9%), and mixed (0.9%) representations. When the authors count the subordinated individual representations of the multiple as separate ones the number of all the separate representations becomes 122 and they found that the symbolic representations (36.9%) were almost equal to macroscopic ones (35.2%), while there are fewer submicroscopic representations (27.9%). In case of visual representations including multiple levels (21.8%); the majority of them (45.8%) included macroscopic and symbolic levels, and there was only one representation including all three levels (12). Considering the chemistry textbooks used in the USA, Nyachwaya and Wood (2014) reported the majority (85%) of the visual representations were at the symbolic level, whereas the rest of them (15%) were either at macroscopic, particulate or multiple levels (10). In Turkey, as in many other countries, students start learning chemical phenomena in the middle school. When Kapıcı and Savaçşı-Açıkalın (2015) analyzed the 8 middle school science textbooks in terms of the visualizations representing particulate nature of matter, they found that the most common (36%) type of representation was the macroscopic representation, followed by the particulate (23%), multiple (23%), and symbolic representations (11%) (16). In a recent study, Demirdogen (2017), analyzed 4 high schools chemistry textbooks used from grades 9 through 12, and found that11th grade chemistry textbook included the highest number (30%) of visual representations, whereas 9th grade had the lowest number of (20%) them. Even though the type of representations 113

change from unit to unit, in general, the most common type of representation in Turkish high school chemistry textbooks was the macroscopic (34.4%), followed by symbolic (23.3%), hybrid (23.2%), multiple (10.4%), particulate (6.3%), mixed (1.2%), microscopic (0.3%) representations, and scientists (0.9%) (17). Even though visualizations have capacity to convey rich information about a content, students are exposed to similar types of representations, mostly macroscopic and symbolic, via chemistry textbooks. This study aimed to investigate the types of representations, and the attributes of the particulate representations given in 9th grade chemistry textbooks, used in different high schools in Turkey. In Turkey, high school chemistry curriculum is developed by the National Ministry of Education (MoNE) and implemented nationwide. The textbooks that are published in Turkey are prepared in accordance with the national high school chemistry curriculum. Then, they are sent to a committee in MoNE to get approval. After getting approval, MoNE distributes the textbooks to public schools. In some public schools, chemistry teachers ask students purchase another textbook as a supplementary resource. In private schools, teachers select the textbook that best fits to the needs of their students and the curriculum. If the language of instruction is English, they select the textbooks in English, either published in Turkey or abroad. Chemistry teachers in private high schools may also select a supplementary textbook to follow in class supporting instruction. Therefore, it can be said that, while learning chemistry, students all over Turkey are exposed to visualizations conveyed by various textbooks; specifically, the ones sent by MoNE, the ones used as supplementary, the ones written in Turkish or English, the ones written by Turkish or foreign authors. In other words, it would be important to identify the similarities and differences among the visualizations in all these types of textbooks because they convey information needed for understanding chemistry. In the previous studies, visualizations included in science (16) and chemistry (17) textbooks used across the grade level in Turkey were analyzed. In both of these studies (16, 17), all the textbooks were written in Turkey by Turkish authors. Hence, these textbooks might have reached to the students who study chemistry in Turkish. This study is significant in terms of evaluating the visualizations included in various chemistry textbooks that were published in Turkey and abroad, written by Turkish and international authors. Therefore these textbooks might have reached to more students, including the ones who study chemistry in English, all over Turkey. In addition, the visualizations at the particulate level were also analysed with respect to a novel criterion, having the attribute of depicting a structure or a process. Therefore, the specific research questions of the study are; 1. 2.

What types of visualizations are included in different 9th grade chemistry textbooks used in Turkey? What type of attribute; structure or process, are depicted by the particulate level visualizations included in various 9th grade chemistry textbooks used in Turkey?

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Method This study is a generic qualitative research (18) in nature with a specific genre of descriptive qualitative research (19) where the researcher makes meaning by qualitatively analyzing the data to describe a phenomenon. In this study, visualizations included in the chemistry textbooks were analyzed through content analysis (20), and then interpreted to answer the research questions. Even though the visual representations in the textbooks were counted, the researcher analyzed each representation and coded them with respect to a set of criteria.

Sample A total of nine chemistry textbooks used in high schools in Turkey were analyzed for this study. Four of the textbooks were written by Turkish authors in Turkish, one of them was written by Turkish authors in English, and four of them were written by foreign authors in English. One of the texbooks in Turkish and all the textbooks in English were used as the main textbook; whereas the three of the other textbooks in Turkish were used as supplementary resource. These textbooks were determined by asking to 20 chemistry teachers working at public and private schools. Half of the teachers said they were using more than one textbook. For instance, one teacher in a public school indicated that they had been following the textbook approved by MoNE and another textbook in Turkish as a supplement. Another teacher who works at a private school said they had been using a textbook written in English as their main resource and the one approved by MoNE as a supplement. Half of the teachers (10 out of 20) said they were using MT1, 3 of them said they preferred S1, 2 of them said they were using S2, and another 2 teachers said they were referring to S3. Considering the teachers who teach in English, 4 of them said they preferred MET1, 2 of the teachers said ME1 was their main textbook, another 2 of the teachers said it was ME2 for them. In case of ME3 and ME4, one teacher for each one said they selected these books as their main chemistry textbooks. Ultimately, the most preferred textbooks (except ME3 and ME4) were included in the analysis. Even though ME3 and ME4 were preferred only one out of 20 teachers, they were still analyzed for keeping the number of chemistry textbooks written by Turkish and foreign authors equivalent. Table 1 shows the descriptions of textbooks analyzed in this study.

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Table 1. Descriptions of 9th grade chemistry textbooks used in the study Label of the book

Authors

Language

MT1 – Main/Supplementary (21)

Turkish

Turkish

S1 – Supplementary (22)

Turkish

Turkish

S2 – Supplementary (23)

Turkish

Turkish

S3 – Supplementary (24)

Turkish

Turkish

MET1 – Main (25)

Turkish

English

ME1 – Main (26)

English

English

ME2 – Main (27)

English

English

ME3 – Main (28)

English

English

ME4 – Main (29)

English

English

Data Collection and Analysis The visualizations in the main content introduction of the textooks were coded by the author of this chapter with respect to the criterion of type of representations (macroscopic, symbolic, particulate, multiple, hybrid, and mixed) developed by Gkitzia et. al (2011) (12) and to the criterion about the attributes of particulate representations as having structure or process features (6). The visualizations in the assessment or homework sections of the textbooks were excluded in the analysis. The analysis of the visualizations in Turkish chemistry textbook revealed two new codes: integrated and combined representations. Integrated reprsentations include more than one visualization of the same type, integrated in the same content. For instance, a drawing of an alchemist/scientist from earlier times integrated with some regular laboratory glassware including colorful solutions (Figure 1 (a)) is an example for an integrated representation. Combined representations include more than one type of representation displayed independently from each other. An example for combined representation is the one which includes macroscopic, symbolics, particulate, and hybrid representations shown as chalk drawings on a blackboard showing different aspects of chemistry (Figure 1 (b)). Coding was completed by one researcher and then 50 randomly selected visualizations were coded by a second researcher for inter-rater reliability (30). Through discussions, agreement was obtained in all the codes. The textbooks written by Turkish authors (MT1, S1, S2, S3, MET1) followed national chemistry curriculum for the 9th grade objectives, whereas the textbooks written by foreign authors included most of the content covered in the 9th grade, not in the same order. The deviations were observed for the first and the last unit. One of the textbooks (ME4) which was written by the foreign authors was compiled by the publisher so that it only included the content covered in 9th grade chemistry curriculum in Turkey. So, this textbook, ME4, was specifically prepared for this particular school by including some of the content published in the original book. 116

However, this textbook was prepared in 2016, one year before the curriculum was updated. So, it didn’t include the visualizations in Unit 5. Table 2 shows the units covered in the 9th grade chemistry curriculum (31) in Turkey.

Figure 1. Example for (a) an integrated and (b) a combined representation. (a) Adapted from “Faust dans son laboratoire (Faust in his laboratory)” by Frédéric Boissonnas, 1896. In Dover Edition of Creative Photography: Aesthetic Trends 1839-1960: Helmut Gernsheim: Bonanza Books: 1962: p. 131. (b) Image courtesy of Martina Vaculikova, Copyright 123RF.com. (see color insert)

Table 2. Units covered in the 9th grade chemistry in Turkey Unit

Content

1

Chemistry as a Science

2

Atom and Periodic Table

3

Interactions Among the Chemical Species

4

States of Matter

5

Environment and Chemistry

Unit 1, Chemistry as a Science, starts with the discussion about the differences between alchemy and chemistry, and history of chemistry as becoming a science. Then, it introduces the branches of chemistry and professions related with chemistry. Later, it introduces the symbolic language of chemistry by the symbols of elements and some basic compounds such as H2O, HCl, NaCl etc. Finally, it discusses the occupational health and safety in chemistry in terms of lab safety, and introduces the laboratory equipments. 117

Unit 2, Atom and Periodic Table, discusses atomic models with a historical lens, and the structure of atom focusing on the subatomic particles. Then it introduces Periodic Table in terms of distribution of elements on the periodic table, classification of elements according to their places on the periodic table, periodic trends including metallic properties, atomic size, electronegativity, ionization energy, electron affinity. Unit 3, Interactions Among the Chemical Species, introduces the classification of interactions as strong and weak. Then, it discusses the formation and characteristics of ionic, covalent, and metallic bonds as strong, and hydrogen bonding and Wan der Waals forces as weak interactions in detail. Finally it focuses on distinguishing between physical and chemical change in terms of the interactions among the species. Unit 4, Phases of Matter, focuses on the phases of matter; characteristics of solids including the forces keeping the particles together; characteristics of liquids including viscosity, differentiating evaporation and boiling, effect of pressure and humidity on evaporation; characteristics of gases including identification of pressure, temperature, volume and the amount for gases; and the definition of plasma. Unit 5, Environment and Chemistry, starts by introducing the importance of water for life, conservation of water, and hardness of water. Then it focuses on the pollution of soil, water and air, and discusses the solutions for environmental pollution.

Results and Discussion The number of visualization in each textbook for each unit was calculated and tabulated. The total number of visualizations in the books written in accordance with Turkish 9th grade chemistry curriculum (MT1, S1, S2, S3, MET1) varied between 232 and 337, whereas the visualizations of international textbooks, which were selected in accordance with the objectives of Turkish 9th grade chemistry curriculum (ME1, ME2, ME3, ME4) varied between 67 and 145. Figure 2 given below displays the number of visualizations included in the textbooks selected for this study. Due to the variations in the total number of visualizations included in each textbook, the percentage of each type of visualization was calculated (Figure 3). Despite the differences in the characteristics of the textbooks, except ME4, the majority of the visualizations (44-66%) were at the macroscopic level. This might be because 9th grade is the first year students start to take chemistry. Thus it might have been preferred to include more visualizations that they can observe so they make more sense to them. In ME4, which was compiled by the publisher with respect to the teacher’s selection, had almost equal percentages in macroscopic (26%), particulate (25%) , and multiple (28%) representations. This might have been because of the selection preference of the teachers. Figure 4 shows some examples of the macroscopic visualizations included in the textbooks.

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Figure 2. Distribution of the total number of visualizations.

Figure 3. Percentage distribution of each type of representations. (see color insert)

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Figure 4. Macroscopic visualizations: (a) glassware, included in MT1, (b) gold metal, included in ME2. (a) Image courtesy of Dreamstime Stock Photos, (b) image courtesy of Aleksey Baskakov, Copyright 123RF.com. (see color insert) Particulate level visualizations were the second mostly (13%-25%) used visualizations in almost all the textbooks (except S1 and ME4). The reason for these type of visualizations must be because learning about the particules as important as to learn the macroscopic aspects of the chemical phenomena. Figure 5 shows two examples for particulate level visualizations included in the textbooks.

Figure 5. Particulate visualizations: (a) structure of an atom, included in MT1, (b) water molecule, a similar one included in ME2. (a) Image courtesy of Dreamstime Stock Photos, (b) image courtesy of Dreamstime Stock Photos. (see color insert) As symbolic level is one of the main levels for understanding chemistry, except one textbook (ME3), textbooks included symbolic representations at a large extend (2%-22%). Usually the symbols of elements and periodic table were introduced only by using symbolic representations. Figure 6 shows two examples for symbolic level representations included in the textbooks. 120

Figure 6. Symbolic representations: (a) isotope atoms, a similar one is included in MT1, (b) periodic table, a similar one is included in ME1. (see color insert)

In most of the textbooks, it was observed that instead of using these main levels of representations solely, they were used in combinations as described earlier. The most common type of these combinations was the multiple reprsentations at which different types of representations were used to explain the same phenomenon. Except one textbook (S3), these type of representations were included in all the textbooks at various frequency (0-8%). Regarding the 9th grade chemistry objectives, states of matter was found to be one of the phenomenon depicted by using multiple representations. Figure 7 shows an example for a multiple type of representation included in one of the textbooks.

Figure 7. Multiple representation, a similar one is included in ME1. Photograph courtesy of pexels.com. (see color insert) 121

Some of the representations included in the textbooks were hybrid, at which two or more type of representations were given in the form of one representation. The percentage of including hybrid representations in the textbooks varied from 4% to 15%. Some of the hybrid representations included symbolic and particulate (Figure 8 (a)), whereas some others did show macroscopic and particulate levels together (Figure 8 (b)).

Figure 8. Hybrid representation which includes (a) symbolic and particulate levels, a similar one is included in MET, (b) macroscopic and particulate levels, a similar one is included in ME1. (a) Image courtesy of Dreamstime Stock Photos. (see color insert) In the analysis, it was observed that fewer percentage (0-5%) of the visualizations were mixed representations at which one type of representation and another type of depiction coexisted. In most cases, analogies were combined with particulate representations. This must be because the authors might have wanted to depict an unobservable phenomenon with a familiar phenomenon to help students visualize the particulate level. Figure 9 shows two of the mixed representations included in two of the textbooks. In these mixed representations tug-of-wars were shown in which male figures, as judged by men’s hats hanged from the symbols of elements’, convey male gender preference even though this game is also played by girls.

Figure 9. Mixed representations included in MT1. Reproduced with permission from Shmoop University Inc. (see color insert) 122

Only few integrated (0-3.5%) and combined (0-0.5%) type of representations were found in few of the textbooks, especially in the ones written by Turkish authors. This might have been due to the preference of the authors. Depending on the nature of the topic in each unit, variations in the number of visualizations included in each textbook were observed. The textbooks written by Turkish authors (S1, S2, S3, and MET1) seemed to use more visualizations in Unit 1, whereas the ones written by foreign authors (ME1, ME2, ME3, ME4) included more visualizations in Unit 2 and Unit 3 (Figure 10). This might have happened due to the differences in the number of visualizations matching with the objectives. Because international edition of the textbooks might have included limited number of visualizations corresponding to the objectives in Unit 1 and Unit 5 of the 9th grade chemistry curriculum.

Figure 10. Percentage distribution of visualizations in each unit of the textbooks. (see color insert) When the particulate visualizations were analyzed with respect to the attributes presenting a structure (e.g. structure of diamond) or a process (e.g. the process of dissolving), it was observed that in all the textbooks (except one, S2), the visualizations representing structure dominated the ones showing process (Figure 11). It might be thought that this might have happened due to the nature of the concepts. In fact, the units included concepts at a well-balanced nature; to be more specific, Unit 2 (Atom and Periodic Table) is said to focus more on the structure, whereas Unit 3 (Interactions Among the Chemical Species) is more about describing the processes occurring, finally Unit 4 (Phases of Matter) focuses both on structure and process. Even though some of the textbooks (S2, S3, ME1, ME2, ME4) included more visualizations depicting processes in Unit 3; in general, the total percentage of the visualization depicting structures were higher. Then, it can be said that this might have been occurred due to the affordances 123

of textbooks and difficulty of showing motion and process on a static image. In other words, it is easier to show a structure as it can be an image of a species taken at any time, whereas process should be represented over time. Figure 12 includes visualizations depicting (a) structure, and (b) process, included in some of the texbooks.

Figure 11. Percentage distribution of structure and process features in the particulate visualizations included in the textbooks. (see color insert)

Figure 12. Particulate representation which depicts (a) a structure, included in MT1, (b) a process, a similar one is included in ME1. (a) Image courtesy of Dreamstime Stock Photos. (see color insert)

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Conclusions Visualizations are important in learning chemistry as well as they are in every aspect of life. Students need to relate chemical phenomena observed in life to particulate and symbolic levels (4). Therefore, it is important for them to make the connection among these levels while learning chemistry. The best way of helping students to make the connection is making use of visualizations. Because the textbooks are the materials extensively used in classes by students (9) and teachers (11), this study aimed to explore the types of visualizations 9th grade students in Turkey are exposed to through 9 different textbooks used in chemistry classes. The analysis of types of visualizations included in the textbooks revealed that, except one, almost all (except one) the textbooks included macroscopic visualizations at the largest extend. This finding is parallel with the findings of the studies about the analysis of visualizations included in the middle school science (16), high school chemistry (17) textbooks used in Turkey, and the high school chemistry textbooks used in Greece (12). Despite the differences in the characteristics, language, author, settings, cultural values related with the textbooks, it was interesting that almost all (except one) the authors preferred to use macroscopic visualizations comparatively more than the other types. This might have been preferred due to the consideration of grade level. Because, in Turkey, 9th grade is the first year for students to start studying chemistry as a subject, so it is important for the authors to make it a more relevant subject via macroscopic visualizations. One of the textbooks which was compiled based on the teachers’ requests, was found to include multiple representations having the highest percentage, a little bit more than both particulate and macroscopic ones. This might be considered as an interesting example because in that school teachers selected the parts to be included in the textbook in accordance with the objectives of 9th grade chemistry curriculum. This tailor-made book may be considered as an intersting case, because it was found to include visualizations depicting one chemical phenomena with two or more types of representaitons. In other words, the connections among the types of representations seemed to be made more obvious with multiple representations in this textbook. Finally, the particulate level visualizations included in all the books were analyzed with respect to their attributes of presenting a structure or a process. Although some textbooks included more visualizations depicting processes given in the unit of Interactions Among the Chemical Species, the total percentage of the visualization depicting structures were higher, in general. It might have been due to the affordances of textbooks; in otherwords the difficulty of showing motion and process on a static image. That might have been the reason for depicting mostly the structure of atom (e.g. subatomic particles) instead of the processes (e.g. motion of electrons). The analyses of textbook visualizations can be used for the purpose of designing more effective visualizations. Papageorgiou, Amariotakis, and Spiliotopoulou (2017) analyzed visual representations found in nine Greek secondary school chemistry textbooks, with the purpose to construct a systemic network. As a result of their analysis, the authors suggested that such a systemic 125

network can be used to help science teachers and textbooks designers select visual representations, and determine possible causes of relevant students’ misconceptions (32). Considering the implications of this study for teaching and learning, it can be suggested that the textbook visualizations can be accompanied with dynamic visualizations such as videos for macroscopic level and animation for the particulate level. In addition, even though the textbooks include less number of multiple representations, chemistry teachers may plan their lessons to help students make connections between more than two types of representations for the same chemical phenomenon. Further directions from this study may include the consideration of perspectives of teachers and students. Because even though textbooks include a rich selection of visualizations, it is critical to explore what students understand from each type of visualizations, and how teachers make use of them in their classes. Textbooks have been important resources both for students and teachers; thus careful attention should be given in developing and using them.

Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge Ms. Ilgım Özergun for her help in coding.

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Chapter 9

Teaching Chemistry with Analogies around the World: Views of Teachers from Four Countries S. Akaygun,*,1 C. Brown,2 F. O. Karatas,3 S. Supasorn,4 and Z. Yaseen5 1Department

of Mathematics and Science Education, Bogazici University, Istanbul 34342, Turkey 2Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, Colorado 80639, United States 3Department of Mathematics and Science Education, Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon 61080, Turkey 4Department of Chemistry, Ubon Ratchathani University, Ubon Ratchathani 34190, Thailand 5School of Education, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo 2007, Australia *E-mail: [email protected].

This multinational study explores the experience of teachers regarding the use of analogies in high school chemistry classes. The opinions of one hundred and forty (N=140) high school teachers from the countries of Australia, Thailand, the United States of America, and Turkey were collected with a questionnaire developed by the researchers. In the questionnaire, several themes were included: frequency and purpose of using analogies, concepts for which analogies are employed, favorite analogies, features of analogies considered, materials accompanied with analogies, and evaluation of analogies. These themes conveyed the similarities and differences among the countries. Analogies were widely used for unobservable chemical phenomena by teachers from all the countries. The teachers pay attention to students’ attributes and experiences while selecting the right analogy in teaching.

© 2018 American Chemical Society

Introduction Analogies make our language more colorful, more interesting, more familiar. In the everyday life we talk about an easy task as “piece of cake” in the USA and (just like Australia or “çocuk oyuncağı (kid’s toy)” in Turkey, or “ eating banana)” in Thailand. Analogies have had an important role in chemistry education and the use of analogies have been explored from high school to college level chemistry. Studies have shown that analogies have proven to be powerful tools in generating insight and understanding of abstract concepts (1). Analogies presented to students in a school setting promote flexible, conceptual learning, and problem solving skills (2). This might be very helpful while teaching chemistry as chemical phenomena can be seen in three different representations namely macroscopic, symbolic, and particulate that are related to each other (3). The macroscopic level is the observable chemical phenomena including changes in temperature, colour, or products (forming or disappearing). The particle level of representation is utilized to explain macroscopic phenomena based on the particulate nature of matter. The symbolic level is required to communicate between macroscopic and particle nature of chemical phenomena via pictorial, algebraic, physical and computational forms including chemical equations, graphs, mechanisms, analogies, and model kits (3). In chemistry education the meaning of analogy is extended to include ‘the process of identifying similarities between two concepts … [and] abstract ideas in familiar terms (4).’ Used in this way, analogies clarify, illustrate, and construct meaning by making the unfamiliar (what one is trying to explain) familiar in terms of ideas that are analogically similar. Analogies create relations between previously familiar knowledge and experiences and new contexts and problems (5); they open new perspectives for students from teachers’ perspectives (6). Analogies help students understand complex, abstract concepts by creating opportunities for them to compare real world similarities with new or abstract concepts (7). Students are then able to develop a more scientific understanding of concepts, especially abstract concepts, because analogies provide new material that can be easily integrated to students’ existing knowledge (8). Why do teachers need to use analogy in science and chemistry teaching? When used appropriately, analogies are especially effective for explaining relations between scientific ideas and ‘ideas that students find familiar (9)’ and for illustrating and modelling abstract or difficult scientific concepts such as: atomic bonds and the conservation of matter (8–10); fundamental chemical concepts such as solubility (11); the use of complex instrumental techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (9); molecular structure, chemical reactivity and equilibria and stereochemistry (9). Let’s consider following analogy about solubility: A beaker filled with magnets and another filled with marbles. When you pour one into the other and stir them, these two do not mix. Attraction forces among the magnets do not allow marbles spread into (dissolved) the magnets. These forces do not let the magnets separate from each other and scatter into the marbles (12). This analogy might be helpful to explain and for students to understand why hexane and water do not mix. 130

An analogy has two attributes: the base analog and target analog (4). The familiar concept (which is used to facilitate the explanation) is called the base analog, and the unfamiliar concept (which is to be explained) is called the target analog. Target and base analogs have certain features that can be mapped as being similar and dissimilar, both types needed to be identified. Mapping is described as ‘the intellectual process of identifying attributes of the analogy and the analysis of the match and mismatch of each attribute (13).’ According to Niebert and Gropengiesser (2014), the mapping process requires reflection on highlighting and hiding (14). The thinking and discussions that occur during mapping are crucial to understanding related science concepts (15). It should not be assumed that students are able to map the shared attributes of the target and base analogs without their teacher’s support (9). Aubusson et al. (2009) claim that while using analogies effective learning may occur when the teacher assists students to map the features of the target and base analogs (4). The teacher needs to discuss and explain the similarities and differences in the target-base analog relationship. The explanation and discussion of analogies are more valuable in learning than the analogy itself. Even though an analogy may sometimes not represent a phenomenon accurately, the explanation of its match and mismatch properties helps create understanding of that phenomenon (16, 17). Niebert & Gropengiesser (2014) showed that although students and scientists may use the same analogies, they map them differently (14). Analogical research in science education has shown that when students interpret analogies on their own they often generate misconceptions about the scientific concepts (5). For example, Vosniadou and Schommer (1988) showed that even though five- and seven-year-olds were able to find the similarities between target and base analogs, students are less likely to develop misunderstandings when they work with their teacher during the mapping of the similarities and differences of the analogies (18). The use of student-generated ideas is crucial in analogical mapping. Justi and Gilbert (2003) suggest that teachers should discuss and guide rather than show and tell so that students can construct their own analogies (19). When students discuss their student-constructed analogies, they are more likely to be able to map their own analogies than the analogies provided by their teacher (5, 20). When students create an analogy, they use their own familiar concepts (base analog) to represent the unfamiliar concept that is to be explained (target analog). Selfgenerated analogies can deepen their understanding of science because once they create an analogy, it is easier for meaningful learning to arise (15, 16, 21). Even though students find it difficult to build their own analogies, when they do so, they can map it easily (5). Aubusson and Fogwill (2006) stated that while students’ own independent analogies may lead to misunderstandings, when a teacher works with students to co-design and ensure careful mapping, sound concept development is a consistent outcome (15). Explanations and discussions about matching and mismatching properties make analogies powerful learning tools. Students generating their own analogies provides an opportunity for the teacher to intervene to highlight when clear understanding exists. Careful questioning deepens understanding because 131

students can build on and modify an existing cognitive framework. Aubusson et al. (2009) argue that using analogies along with the mapping of the match and mismatch of each attribute can contribute to effective science teaching and learning (4). In summary, analogies are powerful tools in chemistry education. Analogies help teachers understand and express the concept being taught and to guide students in their process of understanding. When analogies are used effectively, they are valuable in teaching because they provide an easy way of explaining abstract concepts using familiar concepts. Students need to understand and map the analogies, while being aware that analogies are approximations of reality (9). Learning chemistry using familiar or contextualized analogies is often effective to enhance student conceptual changes (22) since analogies provide students a chance to understand even intangible concepts by aiding students to connect between the base analogue and target concepts (23). When implementing such analogy in chemistry, teachers should consider key features for effective analogy instruction including (1) ensuring the analogy is familiar to the students, (2) mapping as many shared attributes as possible, and (3) identifying where the analogy deviates from the target phenomenon (24). Even though vast numbers of studies have aimed to investigate analogies for teaching and learning took place, a comparison of how and why chemistry teachers from different cultures and regions administrate analogies in their class might contribute to teaching of chemistry in general and research in analogy in particular. Research Purpose This research involves an exploration of analogies as instructional tools in high school chemistry classes by teachers from four different countries. The aim of this chapter is to identify how chemistry teachers from different countries employ analogies in their classroom. The study also seeks to emphasize similarities and differences in the prevalence of analogies usage in the high school chemistry class in several countries. Our chapter will provide an international perspective regarding the usage of analogies by chemistry teachers. The usage of analogies at the international level, across multiple countries, has not been reported in the literature. This study addresses a gap in the knowledge about how the teachers use analogies in their chemistry classes in countries as Australia, Thailand, the USA, and Turkey.

Methodology The study investigated the use of analogies in high school chemistry classes in the countries mentioned as framed by the following questions: • •

What are the views and experiences of chemistry teachers regarding the role of analogies in teaching high school chemistry? Which attributes or features of analogies do chemistry teachers take into consideration while selecting them? 132

•

What are the similarities and differences in the use of analogies by high school chemistry teachers in different countries?

Phenomenography was chosen as the theoretical framework to guide this research, since the goal was to identify various ways high school chemistry teachers perceive the use and relevancy of analogies in addressing different chemistry concepts. According to Marton (1986), phenomenography “is a research method adapted to mapping the qualitatively different ways in which people experience, conceptualize, perceive, and understand various aspects of and phenomena in the world around them (25).” This approach is suitable for description of differences and similarities in participants’ opinions. Participants The number of participants in each country were similar. Thirty-five teachers each in Australia and the USA; 34 teachers in Thailand, and 36 teachers in Turkey were recruited for a total of 140 chemistry teachers. Participation in the study was voluntary and only the chemistry teachers were invited. All ethical considerations common to research with human subjects were obtained in the development of this study, prior to all phases including data collection and analysis protocols. The teachers in the USA were recruited using the web site of National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). The teachers in the other countries were contacted through e-mail. As shown in Figure 1, 59% of the participants from Turkey, Australia, the USA and Thailand, were female. When we report the gender based on the sample in each county, Turkey represents 70% female and 30% male, similarly Australia represents 63% female, and 37% male. When we look at the USA and Thailand participants, almost half were female and half were male chemistry teachers.

Figure 1. Gender distribution of the participants. (see color insert) In terms of the distribution of the highest degree in education (Figure 2), overall, 44% of all chemistry teachers in all four countries reported they have a terminal bachelor’s degree while 46% of all teachers have a terminal master’s degree, and only 8% of them have a PhD degree. More than half of Turkey (61%) and Australia participants (51%) have only a bachelor’s degree. However the 133

majority of teachers in Thailand (65%) and USA (57%) have a masters degree. The USA sample had the highest percentage have a PhD teachers (14%) followed by Australia (11%) and Turkey (6%) in our sample. There were no chemistry teachers having a PhD in the sample of Thailand.

Figure 2. The distribution of the highest degree in education. (see color insert) Participants in our sample from all four countries indicated that about one third of them (29%) had 1-5 years of experience in teaching chemistry followed by 6-10 years of experience (24%), 11-15 years of experience (16%), 16-20 years of experience (14%) and more than 20 years of experience (17%), as seen in Figure 3. A similar trend in distribution of experience in teaching chemistry is seen in each country. Participants in our samples from Australia indicated that they teach chemistry courses for just one grade, while some participants from the USA, Turkey, and Thailand teach chemistry courses for more than one grade. The majority of teachers from Australia (71%) teach chemistry courses for 12th grade students, the majority of teachers from Thailand (71%) and from the USA (54%) teach chemistry courses for 10th and 11th grade students. Teachers from Turkey are approximately evenly distributed by grade 27%, 18%, 21%, 29% from 9th to 12th respectively. Regarding the teachers in the sample of Thailand, 32%, 38% and 30% of them teach chemistry courses for one grade, two grades, and more than two grade students, respectively. All of the chemistry teachers in Thailand have to teach chemistry courses for high school classes (10th - 12th grade). Diversity in sample selection provided a greater range of opinions and different perspectives of the phenomenon. The number of participants was adequate to provide rich descriptions about various ways of experiencing analogies. The data became “saturated,” as no new codes and categories were revealed in the analysis. Data saturation is reached when further data do not reveal new codes and information.

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Figure 3. Experience in teaching. (see color insert) Data Collection and Analysis The opinions of the chemistry teachers were evaluated through a qualitative methodology in the form of a questionnaire. A 15-item questionnaire, Questionnaire for Using Analogies in Teaching Chemistry (QUATC) was developed by the researchers through discussions about the content and the type of questions regarding the use of analogies in a high school chemistry class based on the research questions. Some of the questions are two-tiered; first the frequency of a particular construct, and then an explanation of the choice were asked. Regarding the validation of the QUATC, a professor of science education, with experience in the area of analogies in science education, was consulted. Based on his suggestions, the QUATC questionnaire was revised and approved by all the researchers. In this chapter, the results of seven of the questions are reported. Results from the remaining questions will be presented in a future manuscript. The QUATC was administered online by using two different software tools: Qualtrics and Google Form. Invitations to participate were sent by e-mail to the teachers. The e-mail informed the teachers about the project. The participants were advised to use the link provided to access the QUATC. The questionnaire opened with an informed consent statement and a request for acknowledgement of that statement. The first part of the questionnaire included questions requesting some demographic information, then the questions that pertains to the use of analogies in the classroom were followed. The data collected with the questionnaire were analyzed question wise and separately by country. Data analysis began by collecting all teachers’ responses for each question in the questionnaire to organize the data. The responses for each question were analyzed by identifying qualitatively distinct categories as ultimate goal, but the analysis process began with open coding, as a form of inductive data analysis (26). The first level of analysis involved examining the participants’ responses by looking for similarities and differences among them. The data were then subjected to a second, deeper analysis that generated categories that were more specific, in accord with the principle of the hermeneutic circle (27). At the beginning and late aspects of the category development stage, each responsible 135

researcher presented his/her results to another colleague. Then, individuals of these paired colleagues checked the coding and categories to verify for internal consistency. After these paired researchers agreed on the codes and categories, they shared these codebooks for the specific question with other team members to analyze their data deductively. During this deductive analysis process each researcher remained alert for new codes and trends in the data. The codes emerged from data are represented below in Table 1.

Table 1. Example of coding rubric Theme

Category and Subcategory

Code example

Purpose for using/evaluating

Student-based Learning Motivational Teacher-based

Understanding Engaging Makes instruction easier

Purpose for not using/evaluating

Student-based Teacher-based Concept-based Curriculum-based

May cause misconception Lack of teacher’s knowledge Not applicable to all concepts Intense curriculum content

Topics of analogies

Unobservable Phenomena Particulate & symbolic level Symbolic level Observable Phenomena Macroscopic, symbolic, and particulate levels General

Attributes of analogies

Materials accompanied with the analogies

Structure of atom Names of elements States of matter Abstract concepts (no specifics)

Student-based Everyday life experiences Background/ prior knowledge Teacher-based Knowledge (Content) Instruction (Pedagogy) Concept/Content based Abstract Objectives

To make it concrete Applicable to objectives

Physical manipulatives Visualization Models Activity Sheet Role-play Techniques

Play dough Videos Atomic models Hand outs Student act-outs Brainstorming

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Familiar Relevant to students age Simplification Makes instruction easier

Results and Discussion In this section we present the results and discussion on selected questions regarding the use of analogies in class, topics frequently employed to be presented with the help of analogies, and attributes/features of analogies considered while selecting an analogy. Also the teachers were asked to write down his/her three favorite analogies. The teachers were also consulted on their opinion on the potential of analogies to cause misunderstandings/misconceptions. It was also interesting to learn about sources the teachers are using to find their analogies, other materials (activity sheets, models, visuals, etc.) accompanying analogies, and if the teachers are evaluating the analogies they are using for their effectiveness of learning. The findings for each question are represented below.

Question 1a. How often do you use analogies? Please explain why. Chemistry teachers in all four countries prefer using analogies at a quite frequent extent. When the chemistry teachers were asked how often they use analogies when teaching, it was observed that in all four countries the majority (76 - 88%) of the teachers indicated that they used analogies in a frequency ranging from sometimes to often (Figure 4). In all four countries, none of the teachers said they never use analogies. Very few (3-5) teachers, in all countries, said that they rarely or almost always used analogies.

Figure 4. Frequency of the usage of analogies. (see color insert)

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Question 1b. Please explain why. Another commonality observed in all four countries was the purpose of using analogies. The majority of them (82-94%) said that the main purpose of using analogies was student learning that includes understanding and retention of concepts. The highest rate (94%) in this category was given by the chemistry teachers in Australia, yet the teachers in the other countries responded with a rate in this category of over 80%. The teachers in all four countries reported that they rarely used analogies for other purposes such as improving student motivation, being suitable for a particular concept, or makes the instruction easier. For instance, one chemistry teacher from Turkey says “I have been using analogies to make the abstract concepts concrete so that they become easier for my students to understand”. Question 2a. With which topics do you especially employ analogies? The majority (55-64%) of the responses were about the concepts related to unobservable phenomena which include particulate and symbolic representations such as atomic structure, electron configuration, and ionic charge. The teachers also indicated that they use analogies for the concepts of unobservable phenomena which are represented at the symbolic level such as symbols of elements on the periodic table. A relatively lower percentages (15-31%) of the responses were about the analogies used for the concepts depicting observable phenomena such as chemical reactions. This might be because these concepts include concrete phenomena, thus easier for students to understand without using analogies. Question 2b. Please explain why you employ more analogies with these topics. The majority of the teachers (59-83%) across the four countries, indicated that they used analogies for student- based reasons. Few of them (13-32%) said that they used analogies because the concept or the content is appropriate for an analogy. An Australian teacher, for example, explains this as: “Atomic structure and displacement reactions are things that they [students] cannot see on a molecular level, but you can provide a relatable description of what is happening. The students can use this to build a foundation for other concepts.” Question 3. Which attributes or features of analogies do you take into consideration while selecting them? The majority of teachers in Thailand (53%) focused on concept-based attributes, in comparison with the majority of teachers in the USA (92%), in Australia (75), that focused on student-based attributes. In Turkey, teachers considered both student-based (52%) and concept-based (33%) attributes. The 138

situation in Thailand may have arisen from the fact that the teachers were seriously concerned about the number of concepts in textbooks, so they tried to manage their class to meet all concept objectives. They mentioned that there are a lot of concepts to cover in each course within a limitation of time caused their class to be less student-based. The teachers in the USA and in Australia were more concerned with students’ ability to relate and connect the analogy to previous knowledge or everyday life experience. Among the teachers in the USA sample, 22% mentioned the importance of the analogy to be culturally relevant and relevant to the student’s age/background in the process of selecting the use of an analogy. Similarly to the USA sample, teachers in Australia sample 41% mentioned the relevance of the analogy to the class group and the requirements of students while selecting the analogies. Simplicity of the analogy was also an important consideration to use the analogy in classroom.

Question 4a. Write down your three favorite analogies. The majority (74%) of the teachers gave examples of analogies involving an unobservable phenomena at the particulate and symbolic levels, while some (12%) of them gave examples of an observable phenomena involving macroscopic, particulate, and symbolic levels. It can be inferred that the teachers from all four countries implemented analogies mostly in the topics that cannot be observed or directly perceived rather than topics that can be observed at the macroscopic level. Their favorite analogies at the unobservable phenomena were mostly in particulate and symbolic levels (70%). These analogies were in the topics of atomic structure and electronic configuration, molecular shapes, and chemical bonding. Teachers’ favorite analogies at the observable phenomena involving all three levels of chemistry representation were mostly in the topics of rate of chemical reaction and factors influencing rate, chemical equilibrium and changes, states of matters, and kinetic particle theory. It was also found that most teachers in Turkey (33%) and Australia (43%) focused more on particulate and symbolic levels related to structure (i.e., toys, fruits, and science models), while most teachers in the USA (48%) and Thailand (22%) focused more on particulate and symbolic levels related to both structure and process (i.e., bicycling, cooking, and role playing). Some examples of their analogies included analogizing catalyst to scissors, income of married couples to concentration calculation, and a darts game to reliability, validity, precision, and accuracy. They also provided role playing examples for the kinetic particle model and change of states of matter using students as particles and dancing students to represent solubility. The following excerpts are examples of the analogies presented by some of the teachers: Australia - “The ethane molecule is like two fidget spinner stuck to each other in the middle. It you replace one of the H with the Cl (Physically stick a coloured magnet button) it is still the same molecule. The point want to make is, single bonds rotate, just like this fidget spinner.” 139

Australia - “Idea of displacement using dog sitting in chair in front of fire. Student comes in and throws dog out of chair onto floor. Chair is the solution student more reactive metal and dog the less reactive metal.” Turkey - “Gaining or losing electrons is similar to gaining or losing weight because the size changes.” “Polarity of a bond resembles to tug of war game with one side is stronger the other side.” USA - “Changing a dozen eggs to twelve is analogous to changing moles to atoms.” Thailand - “Ionic bond is like two friends who have money 1 Baht (A) and 7 Baht (B). A has to give his 1 Baht to B so that they can buy a candy valued 8 Baht.”

Question 4b. Please explain why these are your favorite ones. The majority of the teachers’ (71%) responses were related to student-based experiences and backgrounds attributes of the analogy. Only a few of them rated their favorite analogies based on teacher-based attributes (16%) and concepts (13%). It can be inferred that most of the teachers from all four countries were concerned about their students’ understanding. It was also found that the teachers in Turkey and in Australia rather selected favorite analogies based on students’ background or prior knowledge than students’ everyday life, while the teachers in the USA and in Thailand selected favorite analogies in reverse order. This is aligned with their responses for question 4a, in which they were asked about their three favorite analogies. The student-based factors that these teachers often considered for choosing their favorite analogies included understanding, visualization, and contextualization. Examples of their teacher-based factors were about using analogies as formative assessment and for simplification, while their concept-based factors were about transforming abstract concepts to more concrete, and similarity of analogy and its’ corresponding concepts.

Question 5a. Do you think that analogies may cause misunderstandings/ misconceptions? Teachers in all four countries seem to be aware that certain analogies make sense to them but may not be clear and illuminating for the students and there is potential for creating misconceptions (alternative conceptions), as seen in Figure 5. Some of the teachers did not consider this as a possibility.

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Figure 5. Opinions regarding an analogy’s potential to create misconceptions. (see color insert) A Turkish chemistry teacher emphasized how an analogy may lead to misunderstanding if teachers are not careful. “For example, structure of an atom is likened to solar system and planets symbolize electrons. But, when we consider that planets have different sizes, this might lead to a misconception that size of the electrons is different. Thus, while presenting this analogy, we must warn students about it.” The similar idea is expressed by another teacher in the USA sample: “All analogies may have the potential to cause misconceptions because an analogy in itself is a simplified model of a complex concept. That is why the selection of analogies must be carefully used to minimize the possibility of misunderstandings.”

Question 5b. If yes, please explain by giving example for these types of analogies. Analogies that could create misunderstandings are mainly student-based due to the students’ lack of ability to connect the elements of an analogy. Students may take the analogy as the truth rather than a vehicle for understanding, there is a tendency to consider the analogy literally, e.g., atomic structure and orbiting planets (from a teacher in Turkey), escalators for equilibrium reactions (from a teacher in the USA), ladder for electronic energy level (from a teacher in Thailand).

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A teacher from the USA sample pointed out this very clearly: “After discovering that many students thought the sun was alive because they had earlier studied the life cycle of a star, I decided to pay more attention to the meaning of the metaphors, models and analogies I am using.” Another reason thought to have the potential to create misunderstandings expressed by the teachers from all four samples, especially Australia, is content-based; some textbooks’ diagrams may not fully explain the idea, some are too general and simplified or not matching features of analogy and target concept. The Australian teachers thought that they need to keep questioning to determine whether the students’ thoughts are aligned with what the teachers are thinking. They thought that an analogy is useless without questioning it. In Thai sample, a teacher explained that their students sometimes get confused about the size and total surface area of the same quantity (mole) of reactants, in which they thought that the bigger object, the larger surface area.

Question 6a. Do you use any other materials (activity sheets, models, visuals, etc.) accompanying analogies? In most of the countries with exception of Turkey (for which 67% of the teachers are never or rarely) a high percentage of the teachers in the study are using alongside analogies other materials (Figure 6).

Figure 6. Frequency of using additional materials used with analogies. (see color insert)

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Question 6b. Please explain why and how if you use other materials. Among the additional materials, the visualizations are the most used ones by all the teacher across the countries. The physical manipulatives (e.g. play dough), models, and techniques (e.g. brainstorming) are also mentioned by a few of the teachers. For example, an Australian teacher in the sample expressed why and how s/he uses other materials as: “I use worksheets, diagrams, examples etc. I feel that it is important for students to be able to access this information at a later date and remember the discussion and the activity. If they remember the analogy and not the content then the analogy is ineffective. It is important for students to have something to return, that will help them remember the correlations.” A Thai teacher likes to use animation and video in conjunction with analogy as s/he noted that “Some chemistry topics are intangible and difficult (i.e., chemical equilibrium) so I often use analogy together with corresponding animation to help my students visualize and understand the concept.”

Question 7a. Do you evaluate whether your analogy is effective for any aspects of learning? An interesting observation regarding this questions is that the majority of the teachers (82%) in three of the countries will evaluate their analogies; however, 59% of the Thailand participants never or rarely evaluate the effectiveness of the analogy regarding any aspects of learning (Figure 7).

Figure 7. Frequency of evaluation of effectiveness of analogies. (see color insert)

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Question 7b. Please explain how. Teachers usually employed informal formative assessment methods to evaluate effectiveness of the analogy including students’ nodding, students’ usage of analogy while performing exercises, students’ explanation of the phenomenon, etc. These are considered indicators to show whether the analogy employed enables the student to understand the topic or the concept. Among the reasons that the teachers check the effect of analogies on learning are generally student-based and especially emphasize student understanding. The Australian participants also mentioned students’ retention as another important reason for evaluating the analogy. Similarly a Thai teacher explained that s/he evaluates the effectiveness of the analogy based on students’ responses in class. A few teachers also addressed what they do if the analogy does not work. A Thai teacher, for instance, stated that “if it doesn’t work, we have to modify to get the more suitable analogy for our students.”

Conclusions This study explored the views of chemistry teachers from four countries regarding the use of analogies in teaching chemistry at the high school level. Despite the differences in language, culture, and educational systems among these four countries, there were found many similarities in how chemistry teachers view and employ analogies in their classes. The main purpose for using analogies in chemistry classes was to enhance student understanding since some of the concepts can be very challenging for students due to their abstract or particulate nature. However, the veteran teachers with more than 5 years of experience were fully aware about the potential of this analogies to create misconception. It is required to explain and elaborate the ideas that analogies represent about scientific phenomena, the reasoning underpinning the analogy and the ways in which the ideas in analogies are being illustrated in order to prevent any misunderstandings that could lead further to misconceptions. There was a difference in the teachers considerations for choosing analogies in their teaching. In Australia and the USA, the teachers tend to choose analogies considering more the student-based attributes, in comparison with Thailand that the attributes of the chosen analogies are more concept-based, and in Turkey the teachers consider attributes from both of the categories. In addition, the type of materials teachers use along with the analogies varied among the countries due to teacher’s preferences. In all three countries, except Turkey, the majority of teachers preferred to use additional materials such as worksheets, visualizations, or techniques. In Thailand and Turkey, teachers said they mostly used visualizations and techniques such as brainstorming whereas in the other countries they said they used physical manipulatives or worksheets. This might be because teachers in Thailand and Turkey use mostly teacher-centered instruction, where they enhance the instruction with visual techniques, whereas the teachers in the other countries may have preferred more student-centered approach in their teaching. 144

Another interesting finding pertains to the assessment of analogies and their effectiveness in teaching. While the teachers in Australia evaluate the analogies to check their effectiveness for student understanding, student performance or retention, in other countries some of the teachers rarely evaluate the analogies regarding any aspects of learning. As teachers or researchers despite the country in which we live, we all speak the common language of chemistry. Teaching with analogies was confirmed to be a flexible and useful pedagogical tool, even though it can be a double edged sword. It is important for teachers to carefully select the analogies by considering their attributes and to evaluate them in order to prevent potential misconceptions. To this end, it is important for chemical education researchers to explore the perspectives of chemistry teachers in using and evaluating analogies considering their potential benefits, as well as risks like causing misconceptions.

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16. Fogwill, S. Physics students generating analogies to develop and show understanding-is this quality teaching and learning?, Proceedings of Australasian Science Education Research Association Conference; Fremantle, Australia, July 11−14, 2007. 17. Fogwill, S. Student generated analogies in high school physics, Proceedings of Australasian Science Education Research Association Conference, Canberra, Australia, July 5−8, 2006. 18. Vosniadou, S.; Schommer, M. J. Educ. Psyc. 1988, 80, 524–36. 19. Justi, R. S.; Gilbert, J. K. Int. J. Sci. Educ. 2003, 25, 1369–1386. 20. Harrison, A. G.; de Jong, O. J. Res. Sci. Teach. 2005, 42, 1135–59. 21. Cosgrove, M. Int. J. Sci. Educ. 1995, 17, 295–310. 22. Çalik, M.; Kolomuc, A.; Karagolge, Z. J. Sci. Educ. Tech. 2010, 19, 422–433. 23. Çalik, M.; Ayas, A. Asia-Pacific Forum on Sci. Learn. Teach. 2005, 6, 1–13. 24. Çalik, M.; Ayas, A.; Coll, R. K. Int. J. Sci. Math. 2009, 7, 651–676. 25. Marton, F. J. Thought 1986, 21, 28–49. 26. Patton, M. Q. Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods, 3rd ed.; Sage Publication: Thousand Oaks, CA, 2002; pp 452−454. 27. Shane, J. W. In Theoretical Frameworks for Research in Chemistry/Science Education; Bodner, G. M.; Orgill, M., Eds.; Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2007; pp 108−121.

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Chapter 10

Developing Modeling Competencies Using Argument-Based Modeling in General Chemistry Experiment Course in Korea Jeonghee Nam* and Hyesook Cho Department of Chemistry Education, Pusan National University, 2, Busandaehak-ro 63beon-gil, Geumjeong-gu, Busan 46241, Republic of Korea *E-mail: [email protected].

One of the goals of chemistry education is to connect the macroscopic perspective with the microscopic perspective. The model is a tool to connect these two perspectives and based on observing and understanding scientific phenomena that occurs in the natural world. In a science classroom, the model can be used as a tool of communication to explain students’ understanding of scientific knowledge. However, the science class has difficulty implementing models and modeling because neither students nor instructors have clear understandings of the model and modeling. This study applies the Argument-based Modeling Strategy to general chemistry experiment activities in order to observe changes in the modeling abilities of preservice chemistry teachers and variances in their conceptions of models and modeling, determined by early and later interviews. The participants of the study were 21 first-year university students taking a general chemistry lab course at a teacher’s college.They completed six topics of general chemistry experiment using argument-based modeling strategy. We analyzed the lab reports submitted by the preservice secondary chemistry teachers in order to track the development of their modeling abilities in a general chemistry experiments using Argument-based Modeling. We also conducted and analyzed interviews to ascertain the preservice chemistry teachers’ perceptions on modeling. The results show that the modeling abilities of the

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preservice chemistry teachers had improved while engaging in general chemistry experiments applying the strategy of Argument-based Modeling. And engaging in general chemistry experiments applying Argument-based Modeling, preservice chemistry teachers’ perceptions of model elements, modeling methods, modeling obstacles and solution strategies shifted. As they experienced the written modeling stage, preservice teachers acknowledged the model as a means of communication and realized their models were capable of easily conveying core science concepts of observed natural phenomena.

Introduction One of the goals of chemistry education is to connect the macroscopic perspective of observable phenomena with the microscopic perspective of unobservable particle phenomena (1). These two perspectives often make chemistry a difficult subject for students (2). An important objective of chemistry education is understanding the model as representation, the device that connects these two perspectives (3). The model is based on observing and understanding scientific phenomena that occurs in the natural world and uses various modes of representations to explain and predict (4). In a science classroom, students create models as their own explanatory systems of observed phenomena, and through a series of processes of evaluation and revision through communication, they expand their own conceptual understandings. In reality, however, the science class has difficulty implementing models and modeling because neither students nor instructors have clear understandings of the two (5). Students regard models as replicas of reality and thus are unable to accurately discern the differences between the characteristics of one model and another (5–10). Teachers, also, have difficulty comprehending scientific models or are unfamiliar with instruction methods applying models (11). Consequently, scientific models and modeling have become absent from teaching activities (12, 13). Student progress and learning can change according to a teacher’s level of understanding of modeling (14). Therefore, a teacher’s knowledge of models is essential to the study of science. However, preservice teachers could scarcely reference the main functions and properties of models and their comprehension of the predictive function was especially lacking (15). Several surveys of Korean preservice teachers’ perceptions of scientific models revealed teachers lacked understanding of the nature of the model (16, 17). Teachers should be equipped with pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) that includes content knowledge (CK), general pedagogical knowledge (PK), knowledge of educational contexts, and so on (18, 19). Two components integral to the conceptualization of PCK that should be requisite for science teachers are representational knowledge of science topics and knowledge of students’ understanding of specific (3). PCK, practical teaching knowledge including knowledge of scientific inquiry (20), scientific modeling (21), and guiding how 148

a teacher handles subject matter (13), is developed through classroom practice. Teachers tend to teach models using the same way they were taught as students, resulting in disparities between teacher intent and actual practice (15). Experience in the preservice stage is crucial to teacher professional development (22). For this reason, preservice science teachers should incorporate modeling activities in the teaching and learning process, familiarizing themselves with the nature of models and their role, to ensure successful studies of modeling in the science classroom. The U.S.’ Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) emphasizes cultivating student ability to create models based on evidence, as an important goal of science education, and suggests that modeling is a scientific explanation method for linking phenomena with science theory (23). The national curriculum of Korea provides a standardized education system from primary to secondary school that has undergone ten revisions over the years. The 2007 and 2009 revisions proposed teaching methods using concrete models that aimed to facilitate student learning and motivate interest. The most recent curriculum revision in 2015, with regard to science, focused on utilizing models to improve student learning and engage curiosity and included recognition of the inherent difference between models and actual natural phenomena (24). Ultimately, the revision aims to foster science literacy, by improving student understanding of science concepts and intends to build student scientific investigative abilities and interests, from which, they may creatively and scientifically solve society’s problems, cultivate science literacy to solve individual and societal problems, scientifically and creatively, by cultivating scientific inquiry abilities and attitudes. Scientific inquiry, an important aspect of the revision’s goals, refers to constructing scientific knowledge by collecting, analyzing, and evaluating evidence through various methods such as experimentation, investigation, and argumentation, to scientifically solve problems (24). In addition, the purpose of science education is to enable learners to reconstruct scientific knowledge by oneself and provide them with opportunities. This can be achieved through scientific process of communication, imparting and employing knowledge. The DeSeCo (Definition and Selection of Competencies) report of the OECD identified three competencies necessary for learners to prepare for the social changes of the 21st century, one of which was the ability to interact in a socially heterogeneous group (25). This competency represents sharing information, creating social relationships, and cultivating cognitive and social skills through communication. Korea has also been underscoring communication as a core competency for the 21st century (26). The national curriculum stressed communication, consisting of the ability to effectively express one’s thoughts and feelings in assorted circumstances and situations and the ability to listen and be respectful of other’s opinions, as a cardinal competency (27). Modeling is the process by which learners or scientists solve a problem found in nature by participating in scientific argumentation (25). In science education, the student creates a model, an individual explanation system, and then refines it by interacting with other people, a process called modeling. The modeling experience for learners is parallel to scientists presenting their assertions and theories to the community and being evaluated and revised by 149

the editorial committee, other experts, and readers. Modeling can be considered the elemental factor of scientific inquiry and literacy because students experience similar processes that scientists experience through modeling (28, 29). In other words, modeling is an empirical process in which the model, a scientific explanation, is communicated with others (30). Communication, the objective of modeling (29), requires students to observe, investigate, and corroborate phenomena, comparing their findings to the model. Students must then explain in detail the relationship between the model and the phenomenon using the phenomenon’s properties as evidence (31), and engaged in argumentation using their findings (32). Science learning through communication has manifested in the forms of argumentation and writing. As a result of argumentation, students are able to defend their claims and reorganize their understanding (29). Argument-based Modeling (AbM) is a learning strategy for students to search for evidence that will support their claims. One can cultivate critical and comprehensive thinking skills by listening to someone else’s opinions and determining their validity, and when proposing alternatives to refutations (33–35). Through writing, students are able to improve their analytical and comprehensive thinking skills by expressing thought processes about science facts, concepts, principles, laws, theories, and hypotheses (36). The evidence presented in both forms of scientific language, argumentation and writing, is a good measure of the quality of communication (37). The effectiveness of communication empirically depends on students’ abilities to assess their claims and find evidence (38). Undoubtedly, evidence is an essential element of rational reasoning in any academic discipline (39). Linking evidence to theoretical explanation and adjusting the relationship between the two is an important process of scientific inquiry (40). Through Argument-based Modeling, preservice teachers are not only able to internalize and express what they have learned throughout the process of observing natural phenomena to building a model, but are also able to evaluate and modify their models by listening to other people’s opinions and exchanging scientific knowledge. These practice-oriented activities ensure an accurate understanding of models and modeling. Sound understanding then enables teachers to easily implement modeling in the science classroom and contributes to professional development. Therefore, this study applies the Argument-based Modeling Strategy, emphasizing the use of scientific languages, argumentation and writing, for communication purposes, to general chemistry experiment activities in order to observe changes in the modeling abilities of preservice teachers and variances in their conceptions of models and modeling, determined by early and later interviews. Research questions that guide this study are as follows: 1.

What are the impacts of Argument-based Modeling on a general chemistry lab course on the modeling abilities of preservice chemistry teachers?

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2.

What are the changes in preservice chemistry teachers’ perceptions from the early to later interviews on a general chemistry lab course applying Argument-based Modeling?

Methods The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of Argument-based Modeling on a general chemistry lab course and how this affected the modeling abilities of preservice chemistry teachers. The participants and methods are as follows. Participants The participants of the study were 21 first-year university students (10 male, 11 female), taking a general chemistry lab course at a university located in a metropolitan city. The students participated for a year, from March through December of 2015. The general chemistry lab was divided into six groups of three to four persons. The groups were divided according to the results of a chemistry concepts test, whether or not the student had completed Chemistry II in high school, and the male to female ratio. The content level of a high school Chemistry II class and a general chemistry lab differ, but because parts of the content overlap, we determined that each group should include at least one graduate of Chemistry II. Six of the 21 students enrolled in the general chemistry lab had completed Chemistry II in high school. Hence, each of the six groups included a high school-level Chemistry II graduate. We also made efforts to distribute the male and female students evenly throughout the groups. The instructor of the Argument-based Modeling Strategy-applied general chemistry lab has an undergraduate degree in natural science and has enrolled in a master’s program for chemistry education. Previous to the study, the instructor had completed a training course in argument-based inquiry and had experience leading an argument-based general chemistry lab course as a research assistant for one year. Argumentation-Based Modeling (AbM) Strategy Applying Argument-based Modeling to a general chemistry experiment was based on the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) ) developed by Keys et al (Keys, Hand, Prian, & Collins, 1999). Argument-based Modeling in a general chemistry lab allows students to independently find solutions to questions that emerge when presented with a problem, by selecting tools and reagents. After designing and conducting an experiment, students have time to discuss and reflect on the results. During this discussion, students reevaluate their models after listening to and persuading each other, and each decides autonomously how to proceed. Argument-based Modeling in a general chemistry experiment is organized into seven stages: generating questions, experimental design, observation and results, claims and evidence, references, reflection, and modeling (Table 1). 151

Table 1. Stages of general chemistry experiments applying Argument-based Modeling (AbM) Strategy Stage

Activities

1

Generating Questions

Generate my questions Determine group’s questions Determine class’ questions

2

Experimental Design

Design experiment

3

Observation and Results

Record results and interpret observations

4

Claims and Evidence

Propose my claims and support with evidence Propose group’s claims and support with evidence Class engages in argumentation of groups’ claims and evidence

5

References

Investigate relevant references and compare with my thoughts

6

Reflection

Produce reflective writing

7

Modeling

Describe core concepts of experiment in own language

Once a student recognizes the problem situation, the first stage in an Argument-based Modeling course begins with generating a question, by instinctively connecting information one already knows with the given situation. Next, the group determines a query after deliberation among its members. After the groups have settled on their respective ideas, each group displays their questions in one area visible to everyone (white-board activity). Each student discusses with the other to select the class question. In consideration of the fact that the students may have little experience in argumentation, we discussed allowing the instructor to choose the class question, however, the students ended up deciding for themselves as the activity progressed. The second stage involves the preservice chemistry teacher groups designing experiments that attempt to solve the class question. In general, the groups used the appropriated laboratory equipment when designing their experiments, however requests to use other readily available tools were granted. The third stage, observation and results, requires the outcomes of the experiments to be recorded individually. The fourth stage, similar to the generating questions stage, begins by writing down claims and evidence, individually. Then, the group gathers to discuss and determine the group’s claims and evidence, and finally, all of the groups come together to discuss the class’ claims and evidence. The preservice science teachers display each group’s claims and evidence in a conspicuous area (white-board activity) and proceed to engage in argumentation. The instructor should intervene as little as possible so that the students lead the conversation. Throughout the course of activities, the preservice teachers can compare one’s thoughts with the instructor’s or another student’s and look for a reasonable solution. The fifth stage consists of reviewing various literature and finding expert knowledge to support one’s claims. The preservice teachers acquire new and necessary science concepts while conducting the literature 152

review. The student-constructed models may conflict with some science concepts, thus comparing information found in relevant literature to the student’s model will help supplement the model’s inadequacies and clarify and elaborate one’s claims. The sixth stage is where preservice science teachers get a chance to write down their reflections on the transformation of their ideas from before and after participating in the activities. Participants can look back on the entire process from first encountering the problem situation, confirming how the internal model has changed over the activity. This stage can serve as an opportunity to improve one’s metacognition, reflection on the process of learning (37). The seventh stage, also referred to as the modeling stage, is where students depict, in writing, the relationship between the observed outcomes of the experiments with core science concepts. The writing process reveals the level of the model’s sophistication and whether or not the model functions to describe core science concepts. Students become conscious of the importance of creating models using one’s own language and ruminate on effective modeling. A total of 20 general chemistry experiments were performed over two semesters, from March to December of 2015, with classes held weekly for two hours at a time. Nine experiments were performed in the first semester and 11 were performed in the second semester. Students completed three of the seven stages of Argument-based Modeling during class, and submitted stages four through seven, the claims and evidence stage through the modeling stage, to the instructor at the next class meeting. They chose six of twenty topics that were most suitable to apply the strategy of Argument-based Modeling to (Table 2).

Table 2. General chemistry experiments applying Argument-based Modeling (AbM) Strategy Topics 1st semester

2nd semester

Acid-Base titration

Oxidation-Reduction titration

Chemical equilibrium constant

Chemical kinetics

Solubility product

Chemical cell & Sequence of electrochemistry

Topics that focused merely on student hands-on performance were eliminated, as were subjects that only dealt with isolated concepts. Students also considered whether the topics were consequential enough to probe, whether the topics would generate sufficient questions, and whether they would be able to design experiments that would actually answer their questions. They selected acid-base titration, chemical equilibrium constant, solubility product, oxidation-reduction titration, chemical kinetics, and chemical cell and sequence of electrochemistry as their final topics and developed argument-based general chemistry experiment activities on the six topics. One doctor of science education, two PhD students, and one master’s student were involved in the development of activities. A science education expert, one doctor of science education, and one master’s student testified to the validity of the developed activities. 153

Data Collection and Analysis Modeling Ability Test/Chemistry Concept Test We analyzed the lab report submitted by the preservice secondary chemistry teachers in order to track the development of their modeling abilities in a general chemistry experiment using Argument-based Modeling. We also conducted and analyzed interviews to ascertain the preservice chemistry teachers’ perceptions on modeling, and administered a chemistry concepts test. To investigate the students’ modeling abilities, we looked at the modeling stage in which the students write up the results of the general chemistry experiment applying Argument-based Modeling after class. In order to evaluate the student models presented at the modeling stage, we developed a modeling abilities analysis framework based on Bamberger and Davis’s framework (41) The modeling analysis framework is composed of four categories: explanation, comparativeness, abstraction, and labeling. Each category is subdivided into levels ranging from 0 to 3 (Table 3). Each of these four levels is accorded a score; level 0 equals 0 points, level 1 equals 1 point, level 2 equals 2 points, and level 3 equals 3 points. The scores were summed by category and analyzed. The explanation category assesses the degree to which the model answers the questions of how and why the observed phenomenon occurred, and how much causality the model uses in its description. A score of 0 is assigned, if a model is not presented at all and a score of 1 is allotted when a static model is presented that does not demonstrate a process or an overall change. A model that exhibits change, but not causality is given a score of 2. The highest level of 3 is granted to a model that demonstrates a mechanism and reveals a student’s depth of understanding when describing scientific phenomena. The comparativeness category measures the extent to which the model uses both science concepts and the observed natural phenomenon in its description, and reflects how much students comprehend the phenomenon. A level of 0 is assigned, if a model is not presented at all and a level of 1 is assigned, if a model is presented without other comparable situations to explain the observed phenomenon. A model that exhibits two scientific phenomena, but only explains one is given a level of 2. The highest level of 3, assigned to the empirical comparative model—a model that describes the scientific phenomena that arises in two situations—reflects a student’s understanding of science concepts. The abstraction category analyzes whether or not the model describes an invisible element, a feature that cannot be observed by the senses. In terms of a model’s nature and the communication that occurs throughout its process, the model demonstrates students’ knowledge of metamodeling by revealing how much the other person understands. A score of 0 is given if a model is not presented; a score of 1 is assigned if the model describes only a visible element, a feature that can be perceived with the senses; and a score of 2 is given if a model describes an invisible element, but fails to include a relative scale or quantitative comparison. The highest score of 3 is given to models that compare relative size or quantity for the purpose of explaining scientific phenomena. The labeling category determines whether the model includes science concepts and labels. Labeling indicates a student’s meta-modeling knowledge 154

in that the model is utilized as a tool to facilitate communication with others. Non-presented models were assigned a level of 0, models without any labels to aid other’s comprehension were assigned a level of 1, and partially labeled models were assigned a level of 3. Level 3, the topmost level, was assigned to models that perfectly conveyed the modeler’s idea to another person. The framework for modeling analysis was validated by one science education expert, two doctoral students in science education, and one Master’s student. For the sake of the validity and reliability of the modeling analysis framework, three evaluators randomly analyzed ten student lab reports of the modeling stage—written after the argument-based general chemistry experiment and after determining the levels of the models, revised the framework through discussion. A total of four analysts (one science education expert, two science education doctoral students, and one Master’s student) conducted an examination of the modeling ability framework, modifying and securing the framework through continuous discussion of questions raised during the analysis process. In order to determine the modeling abilities of the preservice secondary chemistry teachers, four examiners each analyzed five randomly selected lab reports of the modeling stage and compared their analyses until they reached an agreement of 90%, increasing the reliability of their analysis.

Table 3. Framework for modeling abilities analysis Level

Explanation

0

Comparativeness

Abstraction

Labeling

No model submitted

1

Model that describes events without describing a process or change

Non-comparative model

Only visible elements

No labels

2

Model that describes explicitly how and why the observed phenomenon occurs, but does not include causality

Model that explains with only one of two described situations, experimental or empirical

Visible and invisible elements only comparing size or quantity

Partial labeling

3

Model that describes explicitly how and why the observed phenomenon occurs, and includes causality; the reason for the results

Explicit comparative model that explains the observed events of both the experimental and empirical situations

Visible and invisible elements comparing size and quantity

Labeling of all model elements

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Preservice Science Teachers’ Interviews In the modeling stage of the lab report, produced after the general chemistry experiment using the argument-based modeling strategy, preservice chemistry teachers create and use models as their own systems of explanation to depict the scientific phenomena that they have observed. In order to produce effective models, preservice chemistry teachers go through a decision-making process In this study, we interviewed preservice science teachers to monitor any changes in their perceptions of modeling. The interviews were conducted twice during the implementation of the modeling activities. The early interviews were conducted after the argument-based modeling strategy based on two topics was applied. The later interviews were conducted after the completion of six topics of general chemistry experiment based on argument-based modeling. We adjusted the interview questions developed by Lee, Cho, & Nam (42) and selected three topics: model elements, modeling strategies, difficulties in executing modeling and solution strategies (Table 4). The first topic intended to identify what preservice science teachers think about the elements of an effective model. We asked their thoughts on the definition of a model, a method they deem productive when implementing modeling, and the method actually used when performing modeling. The second topic looked to determine the modeling strategies being used, with questions about the processes involved when performing modeling and how the modeling stage is useful. Finally, interviews were conducted to find out the difficulties of modeling and their solutions. We asked the preservice teachers at what part in the construction of their models were problems encountered and how they resolved those frustrations. One-on-one, semi-structured interviews were administered between the instructor and preservice science teachers. Interviews lasted approximately 20 minutes per person; all interviews were recorded and transcribed.

Table 4. Interview questions Topic Modeling Elements

Question What do you think modeling is? What methods did you actually use when modeling?

Modeling Strategy

What do you think are effective modeling methods for persuading or instructing others? What do you think is most important in modeling?

Problems and Solutions during Modeling

What is difficult about the written part of modeling? How do you address the difficulties encountered during the written modeling stage?

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Chemistry Test The chemistry concepts tests consisted of 42 items including the elements of the periodic table, chemical reactions, endothermic and exothermic reactions. The test included one true or false question, one multiple-choice question with three options to choose from, six multiple-choice questions with four options, and 34 multiple-choice questions with five options to select an answer from. A science education expert, two doctoral students in science education, and one graduate student verified the validity of the chemistry concepts test.

Results Modeling Abilities The modeling abilities test comprised four categories: explanation, comparativeness, abstraction, and labeling. Every model was assessed for each of the four categories and assigned a level from 0 to 3 per category. The four levels, 0 through 3, were accorded points; level 0 corresponds to 0 points, level 1 corresponds to 1 point, level 2 corresponds to 2 points, and level 3 corresponds to 3 points. The points or scores were totalled by category and analyzed. The analysis results of the levels of student-proposed models on six topics of general chemistry experiments applying argument-based modeling are presented in Table 5. In analysis of the modeling stage of the first argument-based experiment topic, acid-base titration, the proposed models were assessed for explanation, how much causality was included in the descriptions of how and why scientific phenomena occurred. Failure to propose a model resulted in a level of 0, hence 17 students were assigned to level 0 for the explanation category of the test. One student was assigned to level 1 and two students were assigned to level 2. No students qualified for level 3, the highest level. The models were also evaluated for comparativeness, how much causality was incorporated in describing experimental and empirical situations, detailing science concepts or observed natural phenomena. Seventeen students were assigned to level 0 and three students were assigned to level 2. No students were assigned to either level 1 or level 3. The abstraction category of the test assessed whether or not the students’ models described invisible elements and characteristics undetectable by the senses. Seventeen students were assigned to level 0, three students were assigned to level 1, and no students were assigned to either levels 2 or 3. The labeling category inspected models for inclusion of science concepts and labels that helped clarify those concepts. Seventeen students were assigned to level 0, one student was assigned to level 1, and two students were assigned to level 2. No students were assigned to level 3.

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Table 5. Results of modeling abilities analysis in four categories Topic 1

Topic 2

Topic 3

Topic 4

Topic 5

Topic 6

Acid-Base titration

Chemical equilibrium constant

Solubility product

OxidationReduction titration

Chemical kinetics

Chemical cell & Sequence of electrochemistry

Level

0

1

2

3

0

1

2

3

0

1

2

3

0

1

2

3

0

1

2

3

0

1

2

3

Explanation

17

1

2

0

11

3

2

5

6

4

5

6

3

7

7

2

1

9

4

5

0

11

6

3

Comparativeness

17

0

3

0

11

3

5

2

6

5

6

4

3

13

1

2

1

3

10

5

0

8

9

3

Abstraction

17

3

0

0

11

7

2

1

6

5

4

6

3

5

8

3

1

11

2

5

0

11

6

3

Labelling

17

1

2

0

11

3

5

2

6

0

7

8

3

1

12

3

1

6

8

4

0

2

14

4

158

Modeling ability

20

74

130

124

148

148

Analysis of the modeling stage of the second argument-based experiment topic, chemical equilibrium constant, for the explanation category, yielded 11 students in level 0, three students in level 1, two students in level 2, and five students in level 3. The comparativeness category of the test yielded 11 students in level 0, three students in level 1, and five students in level 2; two students were assigned to level 3. Eleven students were assigned to level 0 in the abstraction category, seven students were assigned to level 1, two students were assigned to level 2, and one student was assigned to level 3. The labeling category produced the following: 11 students in level 0, three students in level 1, five students in level 2, and two students in level 3. The explanation category analysis for the third argument-based experiment topic, solubility product experiment, generated the following results: six students were assigned to level 0, four students were assigned to level 1, five students were assigned to level 2, and six students were assigned to level 3. The comparativeness category assessment produced six students in level 0, five students in level 1, six students in level 2, and four students in level 3. The outcomes of the abstraction category assessment were as follows: six students were assigned to level 0, five students were assigned to level 1, four students were assigned to level 2, and six students were assigned to level 3. Evaluation of the labeling category yielded the following: six students in level 0, zero students in level 1, seven students in level 2, and eight students in level 3. Three students were assigned to level 0 of the explanation category evaluation of the models concerning the fourth argument-based experiment subject, oxidation-reduction titration. Seven students were assigned to levels 1 and 2 respectively, and two students were assigned to level 3 in the explanation category. Three students were assigned to level 0, thirteen students to level 1, one student to level 2, and one student was assigned to level 3 in the comparativeness category evaluation. The abstraction category evaluation produced three students in level 0, five students in level 1, eight students in level 2, and three students in level 3. Three students were assigned to level 0, one student was assigned to level 1, twelve students were assigned to level 2, and three students were assigned to level 3 for the labeling category of the test. The analysis results of the fifth argument-based experiment topic of chemical kinetics per category are as follows. Only one student was assigned to level 0 of the explanation category, while nine students were assigned to level 1, four students were assigned to level 2, and five students were assigned to level 3. The comparativeness category yielded one student in level 0, three students in level 1, ten students in level 2, and five students in level 3. One student was assigned to level 0, eleven students were assigned to level 1, two students were assigned to level 2, and five students were assigned to level 3 in the abstraction category. Evaluation of the labeling category produced the following: one student in level 0, six students in level 1, eight students in level 2, and four students in level 3. Analysis of the sixth and last argument-based experiment topic, chemical cell and sequence of electrochemistry, produced the following results. No students were assigned to level 0 of the explanation category. Eleven students were assigned to level 1, six students were assigned to level 2, and three students were assigned to the level 3. The comparativeness category also saw no students 159

assigned to level 0. Eight students were assigned to level 1, nine students were assigned to level 2, and three students were assigned to level 3. The results of the abstraction category analysis were identical to the explanation category; zero students were assigned to level 0, eleven students were assigned to level 1, six students were assigned to level 2, and three students were assigned to level 3. Zero students were assigned to level 0, two students were assigned to level 1, fourteen students were assigned to level 2, and four students were assigned to level 3 in the labeling category of the test. The analysis results of the modeling abilities test totaled 20 points for the first experiment subject, 74 for the second subject, 130 points for the third subject, 124 for the fourth, 148 for the fifth, and 148 for the sixth and last subject. During the first two subjects of the three experiment subjects performed in the first semester, a majority of the students did not present models or describe in writing the observed phenomena, so were placed in level 0. Consequently, the first and second subjects’ modeling scores were lower than the scores of the other experiments. However, an increase in modeling abilities is evident from the first experiment to the third. This growth signifies that students have become familiar with presenting their individual models and writing explanations in the modeling stage of an argument-based general chemistry experiment. The development in scores for the first three experiments also indicates that the student-generated models have reached advanced levels of explanation, comparativeness, abstraction, and labeling. The analysis outcomes of the three experiment subjects executed in the second semester suggest a steady maintenance of the modeling abilities formed during the first semester. We believe the fourth subject assessment’s lower score was a result of the difficulties most students were having with oxidation-reduction titration related concepts.

Figure 1. Change in categorized levels of modeling abilities over six AbM applied general chemistry experiments. Figure 1 shows the changes that occurred per category in modeling abilities for all six subjects over the two semesters. As exhibited in Figure 2, the number of students at level 0 progressively diminishes while the number of models at levels 1, 2, and 3 gradually increases from the first subject to the third. As the students experienced modeling, they were able to express the core concepts of observed 160

scientific phenomena in writing and present their models. The rise in scores reflects the growing sophistication of the models submitted. Also, after looking at the modeling abilities measured in the three experiment subjects performed in the second semester, we noticed the number of students at level 0 had abruptly fallen from the first semester. In particular, there were no students placed in level 0 for the sixth subject. The number of models scored at level 1 and 2 remained constant, while the number of models assigned to level 3, regardless of the argument-based chemistry experiment subject, was also maintained, intimating that the previously cultivated modeling abilities have been internalized. The four categories of the modeling abilities test, explanation; comparativeness; abstraction; and labeling, were assessed by assignment to one of four levels. Each level corresponds with a score—level 0 equals 0 points, level 1 equals 1 point, level 2 equals 2 points, and level 3 equals 3 points—and the scores per category were summed. The differences in modeling abilities for each subject experiment of the first and second semester are shown in Figure 2. As the argument-based lessons progressed, modeling abilities increased. The fourth, fifth, and sixth subject experiments were carried out and argument-based general chemistry experiments were reencountered after two months of vacation.

Figure 2. Change in total scores of modeling abilities over six Abm general chemistry experiments. Preservice Chemistry Teacher Interview Analysis In order to identify what modeling elements preservice chemistryteachers perceived as effective when explaining science concepts, we asked them what they believed modeling/the model was and the actual methods they practiced when performing modeling. When asked what they thought a model or modeling was in the initial interview, the preservice chemistry teachers responded with varying answers. 161

They conceived the model to be either a supplement to explanation or a device that explains with precise terminology, and supposed a model’s contents should be uncomplicated (Case 1, 2). After engaging in experiments that applied (the) argument-based modeling (strategy) the preservice chemistry teachers took their explanations from the audience’s point of view into account and realized that modeling involved writing their interpretations of science concepts in consideration of other readers (Case 3, 4). The teachers in training also recognized that the model began at the internal model, where science knowledge is internalized in a format that the builders themselves can understand (Case 5). Therefore, the model should be able to explain its internal model of scientific knowledge and concepts as simply as possible for the reader’s ease of comprehension, and reconstruct and convey its knowledge in a manner that is easy to follow. Case 1. Preservice chemistry teacher A’s initial perceptions of models/ modeling …it is supplementary to one’s explanation/description, visually or by involving the experiment… Case 2. Preservice chemistry teacher B’s initial perceptions of models ...You have to use easy-to-understand, unambiguous/implied? terms, etc… however the content [of models] should become simpler/more accessible than as I know them now Case 3. Preservice chemistry teacher C’s later perceptions of models …I become worried about how and what I should write, because [models] are used to explain to other people Case 4. Preservice chemistry teacher A’s later perceptions of models …[the model] helps me to smoothly communicate when I’m explaining to someone and also helps the other person to understand more easily,…by using audiovisual materials, I’m able to understand something like a chemistry experiment simply and comfortably, while also considering the other person’s interest and comprehension… Case 5. Preservice chemistry teacher B’s later perceptions of models …models,… simply put, are altered forms of information that can then be learned. I think the form of what is stored inside my head is the model… In response to the question of what methods they actually used when modeling (the process of constructing a model), the preservice chemistry teachers recalled descriptions they had heard and described real-life examples that could represent scientific phenomena, but did not make efforts to alter their explanation methods in consideration of the reader (Case 6, 7). After applying argument-based modeling to experiments, the preservice teachers realized that modeling was their own method of explanation (Case 8). We, as interviewers, could see that the preservice teachers were examining ways of improving reader comprehension 162

(Case 9). The preservice teachers used visual labels for easy identification of relationships between terms to enhance reader understanding of modeling and their explanations of observed scientific phenomena (Case 10). Case 6. Preservice chemistry teacher B’s initial recognition of methods used when performing modeling …[biology] was explained very engagingly… For example, comparing the mitochondria to a factory… I’ve just given a brief account, …I try to use comparison when I can, using examples… Case 7. Preservice chemistry teacher D’s initial recognition of methods used when performing modeling …a common example for acid is vinegar, which tastes sour… using classic examples would be helpful I think… it might be easier to understand with a picture or photo… but, honestly, I don’t think I’ve tried to make alterations when modeling… Case 8. Preservice chemistry teacher A’s later recognition of methods used when performing modeling …easy-to-communicate… a more relevant chemical formula, experiment that’s user friendly and not hard to grasp… it’s difficult… conceiving my own model wasn’t easy… good modeling is intuitive and connective. Wouldn’t it be efficient if, right away, you understood what you see and hear… Case 9. Preservice chemistry teacher B’s later recognition of methods used when performing modeling ...I realized it’s not intended just for me… and you have to write from a teaching position… I tried to elaborate… while thinking about what would be easier for the reader to understand… Case 10. Preservice chemistry teacher D’s later recognition of methods used when performing modeling …I indicated the relationship between terms so you could get it all in one glance… the experiments became harder during the second semester… I would show what experiments we had completed and if they included principles then I drew pictures… if they don’t know what you’ve drawn, it’s hard to understand… so I made distinctions between them and marked them to avoid confusion… in the case of color… for instance if I keep using black… it can become confusing… so I used color in a way that was easy to understand In the early interview, preservice chemistry teachers were asked what they thought effective modeling methods for persuading or instructing others were. Responses included using real-life examples (Case 11), and depicting science knowledge with familiar metaphors when writing to help others understand science concepts. However, in later interview, preservice teachers responded that effective modeling methods should be visually appealing as this piques interest and once abstruse, core science concepts are communicated, then the reader 163

can effectively be made to understand (Case 13) or in addition to describing the experimental process and presenting it, the preservice teacher can establish the middle school student as the explanation’s target and propose and adjust the explanation accordingly (Case 14). They also suggested using colloquial language over formal language, in consideration of the reader, creating the effect of receiving a one-on-one explanation, and employing pictures when illustrating complex science concepts as effective methods of communication (Case 15). Case 11. Preservice chemistry teacher E’s early conception of effective modeling methods ...basically… I only wrote about what I knew. I tried to write as if I were explaining, but mainly wrote about what I knew… I included real-life examples. Also… text by itself feels stiff… I thought pictures would make comprehension easier so I included pictures… Case 12. Preservice chemistry teacher F’s early conception of effective modeling methods Good explanation is… for example… the physics teacher explained things too complicatedly… no one could understand… there are methods for kids to easily understand …things like terms, etc… why would the instructor explain something in this manner… Case 13. Preservice chemistry teacher G’s later conception of effective modeling methods When I performed modeling... I am… adding pictures and description… it’s easy to understand once you see a visual… I describe with pictures and supplement with writing… anything I was wondering about, I think I got the gist of pretty well… I used examples to facilitate comprehension… the beginning should be interesting and not boring… you ask a question about the question asked regarding a certain situation and write a description of the events consistent with the experiment… Case 14. Preservice chemistry teacher B’s later conception of effective modeling methods …I think the most important thing when writing is… at first, my goal was to make it as simple as possible and straightforward and decided to base my explanation on the experiment, assuming that the person had also performed the experiment. However, when I did this, some of the content would go missing… I needed to make corrections to my criteria and reset the standard to middle school student… a middle school student who at least understood the basics…Wouldn’t they understand if I explained it like this, just to the extent where questions became unnecessary… as simple as possible Case 15. Preservice chemistry teacher H’s later conception of effective modeling methods There are a lot of pictures if you look at what I did… I like pictures… so I draw a lot of them… rather than textbook style, explaining it like you’re next to them… I thought pictures were important… pictures can be used as detailed examples when 164

describing and they’re inescapable, I think definitions are important… definitions are like promises, I think pictures that define clearly and help in understanding the definitions are good… When asked early on what they believed to be most important in modeling, preservice chemistry teachers deemed understanding science concepts to be most critical (Case 16, 17). They perceived the model as a tool that aids learning and explanation, an instrument necessary for comprehending core concepts, or a conveyer of one’s knowledge. In a later interview, preservice teachers proffered that presenting a visually navigable and simplified model was important to modeling. Like a picture, a visual model might make itself less intimidating to digest from the learner’s perspective. Assessing for learner and other audience readability and comprehension signifies that they (the preservice teachers) believed visual elements were most essential to modeling (Case 18, 19). Case 16. Preservice chemistry teacher I’s early recognition of what is important in modeling) ...the core concepts and how well you’re handling them, if they’re easy to understand… I believe the model is a tool that helps learning and explanation, but if it covers unnecessary, miscellaneous things then the model loses its value/ meaning... Case 17. Preservice chemistry teacher J’s early recognition of what is important in modeling …the model smoothly communicates my knowledge to other people… Case 18. Preservice chemistry teacher I’s later recognition of what is important in modeling …something visually pleasing and easy to understand… I tried to draw something, and even tried to describe the word… writing and only writing requires you to clarify everything, but because there is something visual… I think it’s nice to look at the picture and understand both together… wondering why this concept is needed, why this order… the feeling when you accept it… I think doing this is better than endlessly explaining… Case 19. Preservice chemistry teacher B’s later recognition of what is important in modeling Once I show the model, I feel there shouldn’t be any disagreement... Questions like ‘doesn’t it not work in this situation?’ come up, but if I can’t give an answer then I can’t use the model as a model... So, if possible, I’m going to build and write models that won’t raise questions I can’t answer. It’s challenging trying to create a model that can be understood by others as well as myself. I choose comprehension first... I think the understanding of the learner [the model’s target] is more important, however... what seems most important is constructing a model within a scope where others aren’t asking these types of questions…

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After conducting the general chemistry experiment applying argument-based modeling, the preservice science teachers engaged in the written stage of modeling. They were asked about the obstacles they encountered when generating and presenting models and the methods they adopted to resolve them. The question asked in the early interview, ‘what were some of the difficulties you came across during the modeling process?’ produced limited responses. Either the preservice teachers believed that they did not experience much difficulty because they were simply looking at the question from a communication standpoint (Case 20), or they found the task of specifying the scope of content in their science concepts descriptions burdensome (Case 21). The preservice teachers’ answers in the later interview were similar to the earlier responses when asked the same question. They continued to assume they needed to possess sufficient scientific knowledge and the fact that they felt they should tailor their explanations to accommodate their target learner, middle school students, reveals that they were concerned about the knowledge preservice science teachers should retain (Case 22, 23). Case 20. Preservice chemistry teacher K’s initial consciousness on the difficulties of modeling …I’d ask whether or not [they] are aware of the concepts relating to the situation and if they say that they are aware then I’d explain according to my way... meaning my explanation would be focused on the principles/fundamentals… My method?... How can I describe it… I’m not sure… I haven’t thought about methods of explaining… I thought it was sufficient just to deliver the contents. Case 21. Preservice chemistry teach I’s initial consciousness on the difficulties of modeling ...what was difficult was where exactly to set the scope… I have no way of knowing how much the other person knows; when using acid-bases, should I or shouldn’t I use equivalents? Case 22. Preservice chemistry teacher B’s later consciousness on the difficulties of modeling …It’s difficult trying to create a model that I understand as well as others when they see it… I believe that the learner’s understanding is more important, however… I feel designing a model within limits so that others cannot ask these kinds of questions is most important... I would need to possess complete knowledge if I were to explain… It would be complicated without it… requiring lots of effort… The biggest problem is this. I’m not a middle school student so I really have no idea about what they don’t know… Case 23. Preservice chemistry teacher L’s later consciousness on the difficulties of modeling …it’s not easy for me to understand when the experiment content itself is difficult even though I need to understand in order to take the overall central idea and compare it to something else. It’s frustrating if I can’t do this, and even if I grasped it, the order of cognizance changes pursuant to the order in which 166

information is communicated or by various other means… What was most difficult was taking the other person’s perspective into account as much as possible… In the initial interview, preservice science teachers were asked how they solved problems that emerged during modeling. They said that they readjusted concepts to understand scientific knowledge as they searched the Internet or in textbooks (Case 24, 25), or consulted with the staff when they were unsure of certain content (Case 25). To develop their models in the seventh written stage of modeling, the preservice teachers recalled the general chemistry experiment processes in which Argument-based Modeling was applied (Case 25) and accommodated learners (targets) by either organizing and presenting simplified accounts, or by providing examples (Case 26). The later interview shows that the preservice teachers focused their modeling purposes on how to explain and how to make others understand their thought processes (Case 27, 28, 29). Furthermore, because they saw that modeling was responsible for the design of one’s own explanation to oneself, the preservice teachers recognized that they were explaining to other selves also and presented models in keeping with this awareness (Case 30). During application of the Argument-based Modeling Strategy, the preservice teachers evaluated and modified their models by means of argumentation amongst and between groups and through comparison with others’ models, trying to improve the model’s quality (Case 31), and attempted to answer any questions through these processes of discourse with peers and instructor (Case 30, 31). Case 24. Preservice science teacher D’s early perceptions of problem resolution when modeling …the methods I use most are searching Naver’s encyclopedia and dictionary or previous test papers, writing each of them down, sorting them, and then highlighting the important concepts… take up/adopt a simple and organized way of writing… I found distinguishing concepts before anything else to be most important… Case 25. Preservice science teacher M’s early perceptions of problem resolution when modeling …if there was something I wasn’t familiar with, then I’d search on the Internet or consult the staff. If I was having trouble with developing a model, I would clear my mind by looking back at what I had done before and recalling the experiment subject. Case 26. Preservice science teacher C’s early perceptions of problem resolution when modeling The (modeling) explanation… had I heard it for the first time, then I wouldn’t understand it and if I had heard it before, then wouldn’t I understand… I don’t think I wrote a very logical or concise explanation… I described things I didn’t know with simple expressions… presented examples… I think it’s important to familiarize oneself with the many obscure contents of the curriculum. 167

Case 27. Preservice science teacher E’s later perceptions of problem resolution when modeling It certainly helps to understand. I’m now in the process of becoming a teacher… explanation… that is… attempting to explain to someone is helpful in itself. I have to explain to others, so, how I write, if I formulate it this way then they’ll understand, right? Having a succession of thoughts like this helps a lot. Case 28. Preservice science teacher J’s later perceptions of problem resolution when modeling I didn’t describe the experiment or explain its results in fragments, but added a deeper, more thorough description for a better model… because I couldn’t express it with pictures alone… We solved it together, talking as time passed… That day, after reading all of the principles, the things you were curious about, the things one remembers… if you think about the experiment activities in sequence, you get a rough idea of what you need to explain… I inserted them throughout the model and elaborated… As I was performing the experiment, I would ask myself why I was doing this. I centered the construction and explanation of my model on this question… Wouldn’t another person also have the same question? Case 29. Preservice science teacher A’s later perceptions of problem resolution when modeling ...I think writing itself is modeling... When I explain... if I clarify with similar language and comparable phenomena… wouldn’t comprehension improve? First, I perform the experiment… then I write a report about the experiment and my conversations with the other students… I wrote the report reflecting on how I did things and thinking about the method I understood… I used a lot of examples… because it should be made apparent… It’s hard to elaborate when you have nothing, but I think it would be easy if you took common knowledge and explained with that… Case 30. Preservice science teacher C’s later perceptions of problem resolution when modeling The model is like a blueprint… It’s like drafting a plan/design before the contents construct the house and it’s made mine to acclimate to… I feel it becomes easier to accept if you’ve made such a preparation… I wrote some ancillary explanations, but thought that they wouldn’t be intelligible if I just wrote them so I expounded on them. I read other written explanations and realized I needed to do similarly… I should write it as if I sat myself down next to me and wrote it… If I am to model, then I need to know, so it’s like learning, and it feels like it’s becoming organized, and it helps when I’m explaining to someone because I’ve already written it once. The first thing about modeling is that it’s difficult to understand, but I asked my friend and resolved the problem… Case 31. Preservice science teacher M’s later perceptions of problem resolution when modeling At first, I’m not sure if I even understood for certain, just the concept… I think I was only able to introduce the experiment and later I have known quite well, but 168

only the concept ... It seemed that I could only introduce the experiment, and I had a lot of thoughts about what to do in the future. I did a lot of worrying about how to accept this easily. If you think that you should explain it to others, you will think about what to do and how to think about how you can understand others. Ask a lot of kids, ask your assistant. I asked him a lot. After analyzing the interviews, we found that the preservice teachers’ perception of modeling had changed in three aspects. First, preservice chemistry teachers regarded models simply as tools that organized and relayed their knowledge, but did not consider how comprehensible their models were to other people. However, as they began to use the model as a means of communication, they realized that their models should easily explain core science concepts of observed natural phenomena to others. Their considerations of how to present their explanations to improve reader understanding and their efforts to better explain scientific knowledge of observed phenomena demonstrated that their perceptions had changed. The second change in perceptions concerned the modeling process. The preservice chemistry teachers’ responses consisting of emphasizing relationships between terms, labeling pictures, or using different colored writing utensils, etc. revealed that their initial concerns when performing modeling were methods of writing. However, as they repeated the modeling stage after each argument-based general chemistry experiment, they began to consider reader comprehension and readability, altering their perceptions of methods of performing modeling. The preservice chemistry teachers’ perceptions of modeling performance methods shifted from organizing and reciting their knowledge of science concepts to presenting models that take reader understanding and readability into account. According to their responses, the preservice teachers felt that the modeling activities they engaged in allowed them to refine their focus when performing modeling while also providing opportunities to reorganize their personal inventories of science concepts. Thirdly, when composing explanatory writing for the purpose of explaining to others in the modeling stage, preservice chemistry teachers found determining the scope of information to be included in their explanations concerning science concepts or intended readers difficult.

Conclusions and Implications The purpose of this study was to investigate the change in modeling abilities of preservice science teachers over the course of implementing general chemistry experiments applying the strategy of Argument-based Modeling, and the changes in their perceptions of the model or modeling through early and later interviews on modeling. To investigate the modeling abilities of the preservice science teachers, we analyzed the levels of their models, presented at the modeling stage of the written lab report after the experiment. The conclusions drawn from the results of our analyses are as follows. 169

First, the modeling abilities of the preservice science teachers had improved while engaging in general chemistry experiments applying the strategy of Argument-based Modeling. A total of six argument-based general chemistry experiments on six topics were performed. As the experiments progressed, the preservice science teachers’ modeling ability scores increased. Early on, most of the students were assessed levels 0 in each of the four categories of our modeling abilities analysis framework: explanation, comparativeness, abstraction, and labeling, indicating that their modeling abilities had barely developed. However, as student-performance of AbM applied general chemistry experiments accumulated, the number of students at level 0 decreased and the number of students at levels 2 and 3 increased in all four categories. The improvement of modeling abilities in the explanation and comparativeness categories signifies that the models presented by the preservice science teachers incorporated causality in their descriptions, connecting observed scientific phenomena and empirical situations of the experiment to explain scientific concepts and phenomena. A causal explanation describes the causes of scientific phenomena by comparing the experimental situation and the empirical situation while taking into account elements of the model. Its employment conveys that the student understood the observed phenomena. The abstraction category reflects the level of meta-modeling knowledge of preservice science teachers by assessing models for descriptions of macroscopic or microscopic phenomena, elements beyond the reach of our senses. During the course of general chemistry experiments using AbM, students’ efforts to explain areas of phenomena inaccessible to the senses when building their individual models, particularly supported our determination that the preservice science teachers’ metamodeling knowledge levels had improved. The labeling category assesses the models’ functions as communication tools, looking at the extent to which others understand the preservice science teachers’ models and how the thought processes of the modelers are revealed. The results of the labeling category assessment are reflections of the preservice teacher’s metamodeling understanding in that they incorporate whether or not the modelers have considered ways the models could be better understood by others. Secondly, while engaging in general chemistry experiments applying Argument-based Modeling, preservice science teachers’ perceptions of model elements, modeling methods, modeling obstacles and solution strategies shifted. As they experienced the written modeling stage, preservice teachers acknowledged the model as a means of communication and realized their models were capable of easily conveying core science concepts of observed natural phenomena. In addition, preservice teachers began to take reader accessibility and understanding into account when presenting their models as they practiced the stages of modeling. Their perceptions of modeling methods evolved from organizing and listing their own knowledge of science concepts to considering reader comprehension and readability. Preservice teachers contemplated methods to resolve problems encountered during the written modeling stage and considered ways to design models for readers and future students. Consequently, changes in preservice science teachers’ perceptions of the elements of a model corroborate the improvement of modeling abilities corresponding to the explanation, comparativeness, abstraction, and labeling 170

categories. It was evident that as they experienced the modeling stage, the preservice teachers became cautious of presenting models explaining science concepts, and recognized that modeling is writing a description for other people. We concluded that the developments in perceptions of modeling led to overall improvement of modeling abilities in the explanation, comparativeness, abstraction, and labeling categories. This study looked at the transformation process of the modeling abilities of preservice science teachers, over two semesters of general chemistry experiments applying the Argument-based Modeling Strategy (AbM). We also investigated the change in perceptions of modeling of preservice science teachers and their relation with modeling abilities through interviews. The following suggestions were drawn from the results of our research. First, it is necessary for preservice science teachers to experience a course that repeatedly applies AbM in order to improve their modeling abilities. In order to effectively present one’s own model that identifies and explains core science concepts connected with observed natural phenomena, preservice science teachers require basic preliminary knowledge of models and modeling. However, most preservice science teachers rarely have the opportunity to participate in programs that involve these processes before entering college and so have difficulty learning concepts related to models and modeling. A course that continuously applies AbM, solves the previous problem as well as ensures that preservice science teachers are actually able to implement models and modeling in their future classrooms. Secondly, the general chemistry experiment applying Argument-based Modeling require completely different instructional methods than the traditional general chemistry experiment. Through processes of argumentation before the experiment, preservice science teachers are able to identify their own questions as well as the questions of others. Through the modeling stage, in which preservice science teachers try to find solutions to these questions, they acquire the ability of explanation. To achieve such results, preservice science teachers absolutely require opportunities to learn about models and modeling, as well as opportunities to receive feedback and discuss and resolve problems encountered in the process of modeling with other people. One of the skills that preservice science teachers should possess is the ability to produce models that illustrate science concepts. Therefore, a teaching strategy that helps them solve the difficulties they experience during the process of modeling should be provided through a preservice teacher training program.

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Chapter 11

Australian Chemistry Education Research and Practice: A Dynamic and Colourful Landscape of Learning and Teaching Gwendolyn A. Lawrie*,1 and Daniel C. Southam2 1School of Chemistry & Molecular Biosciences, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia 2School of Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, 6845, Australia *E-mail: [email protected].

Australia is presented as a unique but fertile context in terms of chemistry education research and practice. While focusing on the tertiary sector, the influence and partnerships with secondary education researchers is also recognized. A metareview of publications in key chemistry and science education research journals between 2008-2017 has been analysed to identify the breadth of chemistry education research by Australians as well as concentrations of excellence. It was found that the field is underpinned by strong leaders, mentors and role models, academics representing multiple STEM disciplines engage in publishing their chemistry education-based research. Also, the nature of research is maturing from ontological focused questions to epistemological studies.

© 2018 American Chemical Society

The Context Chemistry education research (CER) is a well-established field with a long history in the rigorous application of theoretical frameworks to enable evaluation and evidence of student learning through the collection of qualitative and quantitative data (1, 2). Typical of a discipline-based education research (DBER) field, students’ learning experiences are highly variable depending on context and prior experience requiring researchers to seek evidence drawn across multiple studies to determine the generalizability of their own findings. Australia represents a unique context based on high school curricula and the transition to tertiary studies that has propagated a rich culture in research and practice in chemistry education, across both the secondary and tertiary sectors. International leaders have emerged who have established strong foundations in conceptual change and diagnostics, multiple representations and teacher professional development. Many faculty and teachers participate in research in both the secondary and tertiary domains enabling cross-fertilisation of information and outcomes. In this chapter, we will focus primarily on the tertiary context while acknowledging key researchers who work in both contexts.

Transitions into Tertiary Chemistry Study With only 43 higher education institutions in Australia, most of which deliver tertiary chemistry studies, this is a unique context in the international landscape of CER. The geographical distribution of these institutions is primarily concentrated in the major cities in each of the 6 states and 2 territories - a number of universities have specialized in the delivery of online learning for remote and regional students, in parallel with their on-campus offerings. In 2016, 1.4 million students were enrolled in higher education in Australia with approximately 7% enrolled in the field of Physical and Natural Sciences and over 24000 students graduating from this field in that year (3), most of these students will have encountered chemistry as part of their programs of study. As with parallel international contexts, the largest enrolment classes within Australian higher education institutions are first year general chemistry units where some cohorts are between 1500-2000 students in metropolitan universities. Until the introduction of the National Curriculum in 2014, each state and territory in Australia delivered a unique secondary (high school) chemistry syllabus. While up to 25% of students are international students, the large proportion of students have remained in their state of origin to complete tertiary studies. The tertiary chemistry curriculum in each state has tended to respond to their local students’ preparation and learning needs. In recent years, while not mandatory, most states have broadly aligned their syllabi with the National Curriculum.

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Defining the Breadth of Activity in Chemistry Education Research and Practice in Australia In the tertiary sector, STEM DBER was has been presented as an overarching research field that encompasses multiple disciplines, including chemistry education (4). Figure 1 displays the different dimensions of STEM DBER in terms of learning outcomes for students, domain-specific foci for CER and emerging topics of interest for STEM DBER research, including CER, aligned to contemporary pedagogies and assessment practices.

Figure 1. Dimensions and topics that frame the scope of STEM DBER and Chemistry Education Research (CER) informed by NRC 2012 report (4).

A large proportion of CER is related to evidencing student learning outcomes related to the learning goals shown in the bottom left sector in the context of chemistry. There is also a substantial body of work addressing the emerging themes in the context of chemistry therefore, this framework has been used in this chapter to guide to categorization of the initiatives and practices in our community of chemistry education researchers in Australia.

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To evaluate the scope and depth of recent Australian activity in chemistry education research and scholarly practice, a meta-review has been completed for this chapter to identify the studies led, or involving collaboration, by Australian authors for the decade 2008-2017. Two highly regarded journals in the field of chemistry education research, The Journal of Chemical Education (JCE) and Chemistry Education Research and Practice (CERP), were selected based on evidence that they contained the highest number of chemistry education articles (5, 6). Full texts of the articles were analysed using Leximancer® to create a concept map which provides a visual display of the relationships between key concepts. Keywords nominated by the authors were used to categorise the audience, pedagogy, educational domain and scientific domain. Three high impact journals in the field of science education research (Science Education; International Journal of Science Education and International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education) were also reviewed.

Innovative Pedagogies and Practices There has been sustained publication by a diverse range of Australian authors representing 21 institutions (49% of the total number of institutions) in JCE (Figure 2). CERP is the higher impact of the two journals (with JIF 1.941 compared to 1.419 for JCE) and its articles typically demand stronger literature frameworks and evidenced methodologies to underpin the collection of research data and evaluation of practice. The number of articles involving Australian authors published between 2008-17 in CERP has steadily grown (representing 10 institutions) reflecting a maturation and recognition of chemistry education as a research field in Australia.

Figure 2. A comparison of the number of articles published by Australian authors in JCE and CERP between 2008-2017.

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A map that shows the relationships between concepts presented in these articles has been generated by entering full texts into Leximancer® and these are shown graphically below in Figure 3. The size of the ‘bubble’ indicates the relative number of references and the proximity between ‘bubbles’ indicates the semantic proximity between concepts. It is evident that publications in JCE (Figure 3a) are typically ontological studies that focus on what students do, with key concepts relating to teaching and experiments. In CERP (Figure 3b), the core focus is on students and teachers indicating a bias towards more epistemological-based research as academics focus on how and where students learn, for example the concept ‘laboratory’ as the environment in Figure 3b is the cited theme compared to ‘experiment’ in Figure 3a.

Figure 3. Concept maps revealing the relationships between concepts in articles published by Australian authors in (a) JCE and (b) CERP. According to the keywords used by authors in JCE and CERP, the focus has been primarily on upper division undergraduate and first year-general chemistry students (Figure 4a). JCE in particular has enabled the dissemination of laboratory initiatives and classroom activities, in the form of action research or instructional design evident in Figure 4b. Inquiry-based learning has also received substantial attention in the past decade with authors also focusing on internet-based, computer-based and collaborative activities (Figure 4a). The recognition and value of the scholarship of teaching and learning across the tertiary sector in Australia increased within the same time period encouraging faculty to evaluate and disseminate their teaching practices. Indeed, many Australian CER authors opt to publish their research in either science education (Table 1) or higher education journals for a broader audience, the current analysis has likely only identified a fraction of actual published research.

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Figure 4. Frequency of cited authors’ keywords in JCE and CERP in the categories of (a) audience and (b) pedagogy.

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Table 1. Number of publications with Australian authors from the top tier science education research journals, and the most highly cited works

181

Journal

Total number of publications with Australian authors

Number of chemistryrelated publications with Australian authors

Most highly cited chemistry-related publication with Australian authors

WoS cites

Google Scholar cites

Research in Science Education

90

4

Chittleborough and Treagust (7)

29

72

International Journal of Science Education

84

8

Othman, Treagust and Chandrasegaran (8)

51

120

Journal of Research in Science Teaching

28

1

Bellocchi & Ritchie (9)

12

26

Science Education

20

4

Niebert, Marsch and Treagust (10)

32

76

Communities of Practice and Professional Development There is no doubt that Australian tertiary chemistry education has been fertile in enabling the growth of communities of practice in part facilitated by the funding structures. Academics were actively encouraged to develop project teams that spanned multiple institutions to secure competitive national grants (11). This has resulted in several major initiatives sustained over several years. Laboratory Learning Undergraduate chemistry courses in Australia typically have compulsory laboratory components comprising 30 to 50% of the contact time and 10 to 50% of the assessment weighting (12). The laboratory is viewed as a central learning environment within a broader curriculum for students pursuing a major in chemistry (13) but this purpose is not always consistently understood or communicated (14). The reviews of research into laboratory learning by Hofstein and Lunetta (15, 16) call for continued examination of the role and purpose of laboratory learning in chemistry curriculum, and Australian authors have made significant contributions to research on teaching in laboratories (17), the role of curriculum (18), the activities undertaken (19, 20), and the learning environment (21, 22). There have been long-term coordinated national projects to explore the role and purpose of practical experiments in chemistry curriculum. The Australian Physical Chemistry Enhanced Laboratory Learning (APCELL) project was established in 1999 with an explicit aim to improve laboratory learning in physical chemistry, which was achieved by establishing a community of practice of educators and students who collaborated to scientifically and educationally test experiments and share the resulting outcomes (23). This project was funded by the Committee for University Teaching and Staff Development to allow faculty and undergraduate students to travel to workshops with an experiment in mind, where they would learn about how to frame this experiment to maximise opportunities for learning (24). In the APCELL formalism, the educator would return from a workshop to implement the improved experiment in their home institution, and explore the student perceptions of their experiences using a common set of instruments (25). After peer review, the experiment would be shared by publication in a journal, most often the Australian Journal of Education in Chemistry. There were ten experiments published in this period on spectroscopy (26–30), solution chemistry (31–33), kinetics (34), and electrochemistry (35). It was quickly recognised that the challenges faced in improving student experience in a physical chemistry laboratory were common problems faced in laboratory instruction across all of chemistry (36), with experiments in analytical chemistry trialled in later APCELL workshops (37). APCELL became Advancing Chemistry by Enhancing Learning in the Laboratory and was funded by the Higher Education Innovation Program (38). The formalism was largely the same, but less emphasis was placed on peer-review and dissemination of experiments as a principal outcome. 182

The workshop gained greater prominence for the professional learning opportunities it provided for faculty (39) and in turn the faculty gained a greater understanding of the role of student feedback in making a good laboratory experience (40). Student feedback was vital developing experiments to improve conceptual understanding of challenging concepts (41), how students may have a different perception of an experiment (42), why timing of an experiment is crucial in the student perception of an experiment (43), and the role of assessment in promotion of engagement (44). The ACELL approach was found to be equally applicable to physics experiments (45) and Advancing Science by Enhancing Learning in the Laboratory received funding from the Australian Learning and Teaching Council and the Australian Council of Deans of Science to expand to physics and biology (46). By the end of its funded period, ASELL had involved 100 faculty and students, with 39 experiments trialled, and 15,000 student surveys completed. The ASELL workshop format was trialled in the Philippines, Ireland, USA and Thailand (47). The last step in the evolution of this project is the outreach to schools as the Advancing Science and Engineering through Laboratory Learning project, funded by the Australian Maths and Science Partnerships Program. This regional program has connected middle and high school science teachers and their students with faculty and researchers in institutions across Australia. Together they develop and test experiments aligned to the Australian Curriculum, which has an emphasis on scientific inquiry (48), in a modified workshop format where the outcomes are disseminated to colleagues through its community of practice. Consequentially, there is an unsurprising prevalence of research from the Australian discipline-based education community on laboratory instruction, development of experiments, and associated research. In the period 2008 to present there were 25 articles in the Journal of Chemical Education and 4 articles in Chemistry Education Research and Practice relating to these themes. Student-Centered Research and Practice The practice of chemistry higher education in Australia has undergone a profound shift from a primary concern for ontological matters of the discipline and its influence on education, to instead focus on students and their interactions during learning of chemistry (49). This mirrors a similar, and much earlier shift, in schools-based research and practice (50). The locus of research has also moved from optimisation of subject matter, to understanding the nature of students and the factors that promote and facilitate learning. In the period 2008 until now, the most commonly encountered term from Australian authors’ works in both the Journal of Chemical Education and Chemistry Education Research and Practice was “students”, with 2232 and 4334 occurrences respectively. The second most encountered term was “chemistry”. A student-centred approach to meta-analysis of the extant student-centred research from Australia elicits three primary domains: students and their variable individual characteristics; the teaching practices employed to learn chemistry, and; the environments within which learning of chemistry takes place. 183

In Australia over the period of this review, there was substantial government support to drive paradigm shifts in higher education, for example the Active Learning in University Science (ALIUS) project (51) was established to support faculty professional development in implementing evidence-based pedagogies, while the Chemistry Discipline Network of Educators aimed to build communities of practice (52). Both have demonstrated considerable impact on chemistry education research and practice (11). A general dissatisfaction with current teacher-student paradigm often drives a teacher in higher education to seek alternative practices to improve student engagement, attitude, and/or motivation (53) and ultimately student learning (54). In higher education this is driven by a lack of attendance at traditional lectures, somewhat coupled to the prevalence in Australia of automated lecture capture technology (55). In re-imaging the teacher-student relationship during learning it often pushes the teacher to seek new methods to engage with students, and there is ample evidence from the literature to support implementation of alternative teaching practices and their efficacy. These practices typically activate students in their learning, through inquiry- and problem-oriented pedagogies. The role of contexts in learning chemistry has been shown to provide new pedagogical insights for teachers (56, 57) leading to academic success for students (58). As a subset of context-based learning, problem-based learning in chemistry has shown to have impact on student learning (53) which in turn leads to developing critical thinking through practical and inquiry-oriented activities (59). These types of pedagogies lead to interventions to target students at-risk of failure (60), to utilise novel technology for engagement (61), or contextualize learning with industry-oriented videos (62). The ALIUS project brought Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) to Australia, with a number of institutions reporting findings from implementation of POGIL in introductory (63–65) and upper-division (66, 67) chemistry classes. Research in Australia has shown how student attitudes (68, 69), self-efficacy, (64), learning gains (63), and information processing (70) improves as a consequence of POGIL classes, and has furthered the cross-cultural relevance of the pedagogy (71). Assessment and Feedback External influences often have substantial impact on the activities of educators and the tertiary chemistry education community in Australia was faced with creation of a suite of discipline threshold learning outcomes (TLOs) to respond to a national process for benchmarking the quality of graduates from an institutions’ degree programs. This process was initiated as part of the higher education standards framework administered by the tertiary education quality and standards agency (TEQSA). The chemistry TLOs subsequently underpinned the professional accreditation of majors or related course in tertiary programs by the Royal Australian Chemistry Institute (RACI). The process of defining and implementing these TLOs brought together large numbers of chemistry faculty across multiple venues who represented the majority of Australian tertiary institutions. To facilitate this process, a community of practice was established 184

and is sustained virtually (72). The evaluation and identification of exemplar assessment tasks that evidenced student achievement of chemistry TLOs has formed the basis a collaborative project involving team members representing eight institutions across five states (73). Assessment should always be considered to be coupled to feedback (in a way analogous with the concept of redox) and between 2012-15, ten faculty who coordinate and teach first year general chemistry courses representing 5 institutions collaborated to develop mechanisms for the delivery of formative feedback to students based on concept diagnostics (IAMMIC). This feedback was coupled to self-regulated blended learning interventions to support students’ awareness of their own thinking (74, 75) and built on work considering transfer of chemistry concepts between the secondary-tertiary transition (76).

Leadership, Mentoring, and Role Models in the Australian Context A measure of impact is the adaptation, translation or transfer of education research findings beyond the boundaries of the context – there are a large number of Australian chemistry education researchers who practice at different levels of the learning continuum and who are internationally recognized for their impact on the field. However, one of the most remarkable examples of high-impact research collaborations spanning two Western Australian Universities has involved David Treagust, Robert (Bob) Bucat and Mauro Mocerino (Table 2). Well regarded in their own right as individual researchers, they have had a major influence on international research and practice in chemistry education. Their success can perhaps be attributed to the fact that their work integrates across the secondary-tertiary boundaries enabling transfer of outcomes into both contexts. David Treagust must be regarded as the most influential chemistry and science educator known in Australia having generated over 182 peer-reviewed publications that have been cited over 22500 times (Google Scholar). His graduate students and postdoctoral collaborators have themselves become influential researchers and are internationally recognized. This is evident through his collaborative partnership with Allan Harrison which contributes three articles to his top five cited publications. The Australian chemistry education community has been deeply influenced by the highly regarded, and seminal, work of Australian science education researchers, Russell Tytler and Vaughan Prain set in the secondary and primary contexts (92–94). Their research into the role of multiple representations in learning, in particular student drawn representations, has catalyzed tertiary educators to also focus on student-generated representations as part of their assessment practices (95–97). A common intention of raising students’ awareness of their own thinking (metacognition) and their conceptual understanding, particularly through combined multiple external representations provided by the instructor, in the form of multimodal representations (98) can be observed in recent publications. 185

Table 2. Impact measured through citation of publications for members of the Western Australian chemistry education hub Researcher

Publication

Citations (Google Scholar)

David Treagust

Duit & Treagust (2003) (77)

1260

Treagust (1988) (78)

857

Harrison & Treagust (1996) (79)

540

Harrison & Treagust (2000a) (80)

542

Harrison & Treagust (2000b) (81)

462

Tyson, Treagust & Bucat (1999) (82)

179

Bucat (2004) (83)

124

Baddock & Bucat (2008) (84)

51

Bucat & Cole (1988) (85)

14

Head & Bucat (2002) (86)

7

Chandrasegaran, Treagust & Mocerino (2007) (87)

203

Chandrasegaran, Treagust & Mocerino (2008) (88)

83

Chittleborough, et. al. (2005) (89)

78

Bucat & Mocerino (2009) (90)

65

Chittleborough, Treagust & Mocerino (2002) (91)

47

Robert Bucat

Mauro Mocerino

Roy Tasker has been a role model leading the design of innovative dynamic representational resources through a related lens in chemistry education research and practice, he has achieved widespread national and international impact in the design and evaluation of visualization animations to support learning of chemistry concepts (99, 100). The principle article describing the evaluation of Roy’s VisChem initiative (99) has been cited 255 times of which 144 citations have been since 2013 demonstrating the current relevance and impact of this work. His carefully constructed animations of the molecular world are instantly recognized by chemistry educators around the world and, since becoming freely accessible (http://www.vischem.com.au/online-resources) have become adopted and embedded by teachers across multiple curricula and contexts.

186

Emerging Directions in Australian Chemistry Education Research The framework shared in Figure 1 highlighted the emerging themes in the broader field of DBER aligning with a shift from ontological to epistemologicalbased research (101) as academics move their focus from what students do to how and where students learn. This change in focus is also evident in publications deriving from in the Australian context in the past 5 years. Individual attributes of students can play an important direct or mediating role in students’ learning, and increasingly these characteristics factor into the measures of success for pedagogical or curricular interventions. These may be affective dimensions, such as attitude (102), confidence (103) or self-efficacy (71, 104), but may also include cognitive aspects of learning — especially metacognition (105–107). Technology-enhanced learning has become more prevalent including the use of new media in teaching such as Twitter (108), podcasting (109), and wikis (54). These environments encourage students to create explanations and representations as well as engage with the language and symbolism of chemistry. Blended learning environments have triggered research to support visualization of concepts in selfdirected inquiry (110) problem-solving (111) and particulate level explanations (112). As tertiary chemistry learning environments shift further towards being student-centered, blending virtual and face-to-face interactions between students and their instructor, it is anticipated that the role of technology as a platform for learning will become increasingly more prevalent in chemistry education research publications.

Conclusion Despite being a relatively small community in terms of the number of active chemistry education researchers in Australia, their teaching and research activities present a rich landscape that is diverse and is growing rapidly. There is a history of excellence through many researchers, in both the tertiary and secondary contexts, becoming internationally reputed leaders in their domains of research providing a strong foundation and culture of excellence. The field of chemistry education research thrives on collaborations and the unique Australian context enables researchers to complete comparative cross-cultural studies that will advance our understanding of student learning of chemistry concepts.

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Chapter 12

Designing a New Safety Training Program Charles T. Cox , Jr.* Stanford University, Department of Chemistry, 333 Campus Drive, Stanford, California 94305, United States *E-mail: [email protected].

The development of a chemistry safety culture is emphasized throughout chemistry curricula at both domestic and international universities. Curricula to emphasize safety is presented to undergraduates during laboratory experiments across the undergraduate chemistry major and emphasized in greater depth for graduate students working more independently in research groups. The paradigm for implementing safety training across the curriculum has been largely lecture-based or delivered using online modules. This chapter will outline the approaches taken at Stanford University to build a safety culture within the chemistry program using an active learning-based strategy for instructing graduate students. The process in which the program was developed, and the assessment of the program from small group evaluations, Likert ratings, and open-ended responses will be discussed.

Introduction In large public or private universities, graduate students play a pivotal role as teaching assistants for instructing undergraduate students in chemistry recitations, laboratories, and office hours. Within larger universities, because of a smaller teaching assistant to student ratio relative to the professor to student ratio, students tend to interact more significantly with their teaching assistants (1). Given safety is predominately discussed during the laboratory, teaching assistants play a key role in developing the safety culture by providing appropriate emphasis and instruction on safety (1–3). Effectively, graduate students act as role models for safety standards and policies (4). Laboratory skills, technique, and safety build incrementally across the curriculum. Therefore, it is paramount to successfully © 2018 American Chemical Society

incorporate safety in freshman laboratories. At Stanford, approximately 1200 undergraduate students complete one of the 13 laboratory-based courses offered by the department of chemistry yearly. Approximately 50% of the teaching assignments are for freshman level courses that include a laboratory component. Additionally, 30% of the assignments are for a sophomore level organic chemistry course that also incorporates a hands-on laboratory component. Therefore, approximately 80% of our graduate student teaching assignments involve the instruction of laboratory skills and safety for freshman and sophomores. The remaining 20% of assignments account for lower enrollment majors courses or courses that do not have a laboratory component. In preparation for their graduate teaching responsibilities, extensive training programs outlining policies, teaching strategies, and safety paradigms have been developed at Stanford, as well as, many other universities (3, 5–8). Stanford uses a three-day training session that focuses upon key university policies, microteaching activities, and safety (3). With safety training programs, there is a trajectory of information from most basic (applicable to all employees) to more complex (applicable to specific research groups) available. At Stanford, all employees are required to take a basic safety training course designed to emphasize topics including: building evacuation, earthquake response, and ergonomics. The basic training is required for all employees on campus. The basic safety training is designed to be completed with 60 minutes. The second layer of safety training emphasizes the chemical safety handling and disposal aspects. This training is required for all students who work in a chemistry laboratory as either a research or teaching assistant. The key aspects of this training emphasize compatibility, reactivity, personal protective equipment (PPE) selection, disposal, and storage. The chemical handling module is designed to be completed in approximately 60 minutes. Additional training modules that offer lab-specific training are available for research involving more specific or specialized approaches that necessitate additional safety training. Examples of these topics include biohazards, laser safety training, cryogen training, animal handling and safety, radiation safety, and teaching assistant training. At Stanford, the basic training and chemical safety training are set by county regulations and cannot be modified – all chemistry graduate students are required to complete these training components. Therefore, I focused on the lab-specific training for teaching assistants, which can be modified and updated as the needs of the undergraduate laboratories and experiments evolve. This chapter will outline my approach for developing the training program. The format for the safety training programs varies widely across domestic (5–8, 10, 11) and international universities (9). Stanford uses an assortment of different approaches for teaching safety with common modes of the training including: online interactive modules and videos and in-class lecture-style training sessions. Despite the importance and positive effect of developing a safety culture that has been widely emphasized by the American Chemical Society (12), research is still evolving in the field of safety training pedagogy and assessment. The number of studies analyzing the pedagogy for safety training is very limited compared to other chemical education studies that focus 194

upon key topics in general, organic, and other divisions in chemistry. A google scholar search yielded 155 results during a search for “chemical safety training” instruction. Furthermore, a search within the Journal of Chemical Education yielded 85 results during a search for safety training. Two pedagogy-based studies I referenced when designing by program were done by Saleh (13) and Withers et al. (14) Saleh explored the impact of using figures to teach safety and reported a statistically higher performance on assessment by the treatment group, who received instruction with visuals, compared to the control group, who received instruction without visuals. Furthermore, the treatment group maintained a safer working environment on average than the control group using classroom observations (13). Research by Withers, Freeman, and Kim reported no statistical difference between online and lecture-based classroom learning regarding retention of safety concepts. The classroom learning used a passive approach in which students were not actively involved and engaging with the course material during lecture. Because multimedia and lecture-format provided similar gains (14), I opted to explore the use of active-learning methodologies for instructing safety training. The research is limited regarding using active learning for safety training, but given the successes in the chemistry classroom (15–22), it was hypothesized that similar successes would be achieved during safety training. Notable improvements across the chemistry curricula have been reported using active learning including improvements in problem solving skills, retention of chemistry concepts, development of a more inclusive teaching environment, and enhancement in the satisfaction of the courses. Programs at the University of Chicago (5) and University of Nevada-Reno (23) have extensively developed approaches that extend beyond passive learning methodologies. A combination of both active and passive training is provided at both institutions. A second study by McGarry et al emphasized the importance of incorporating peer training as part of the safety training process (24). The study indicated improvements attributes to enabling leadership of graduate students as safety officers – hence, reiterating the importance of the peer impact. Given the impact of the peer training approach, we also sought ways in which we could include a peer training component within the training.

Designing a New Safety Program In developing the safety training modules for the undergraduate curriculum several key players work together to construct and implement the program: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Administrators and safety committee Faculty and lecturer staff Staff at EH&S Graduate students

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The administrators and safety committee provide recommendations and incentives for developing safety programs for teaching laboratories. These incentives may include grant money for development or release time from teaching. Faculty and lecturers are tuned into the key considerations for safety and have a greater understanding of the backgrounds and abilities of the undergraduate and graduate students. Faculty or lecturers are also the key individuals responsible for ensuring appropriate safety information is disseminated and implemented in the undergraduate laboratories. Staff working within the environmental health and safety (EH&S) division are experts in safety paradigms and compliance. The synergy between lecturers and professors and EH&S staff yield programs that resonate with students, the curriculum, and align with the best practices for pedagogy and compliance. Graduate students, who often interact directly with students during laboratory sections, are responsible for understanding and implementing policies to undergraduate students. In developing the training, several questions arose regarding the approach, the content, and the goals of the training. The questions I considered were as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

What information should be conveyed in the graduate student training? What format should be used for training graduate students? What information should be discussed in the undergraduate student training? What format should be used for training undergraduate students? What types of assessments should be in place for graduate and undergraduate students? How can we assess the effectiveness of the undergraduate and graduate student training?

The Undergraduate Safety Training Module The undergraduate safety training module was developed jointly with the graduate student module to ensure consistency and continuity across the curriculum. Because of the size of the undergraduate program, an online module was developed for the undergraduate students that includes an overview of the key safety components with a follow up safety quiz. The online safety module was developed using Camtasia with voiceover and pen annotations. The course management system was used to deliver the safety training to all the undergraduates in the program. The 20-item safety quiz focused upon the key ideas with six of the 20 items being “core” items which must be answered correctly to pass. Of the 14 remaining non-core items, students could miss up to three items and still receive a passing score. Students were given three attempts to pass the quiz. To attend the laboratory, students must receive a passing score on the quiz. Scheme 1 provides sample quiz questions. Both questions were considered (core) or essential questions students must answer correctly to attend the laboratory. The distinction between core and noncore is associated with the potential outcomes if a safety standard is ignored. An example of a non-core question required students to recall that the red safety phones in the laboratory 196

immediately dial 911 even if the receiver is returned. While this is an important point for students to know, no one would be injured in the laboratory and response can be cancelled.

Scheme 1. Sample questions from the 20 – question quiz for the undergraduate safety training.

The Graduate Student Safety Training Program Undergraduate students should be familiar and knowledgeable of the safety guidelines. Graduate students should be able to interpret, understand, and implement the safety program. When determining appropriate content to include, the laboratory protocols from the general and organic laboratories were analyzed and safety considerations common across the curriculum were tabulated. When analyzing the laboratory protocols, we considered what questions students 197

may ask and what are potential errors students may have when completing the experiment. The common trends across the curriculum were tabulated. Furthermore, the content of the online safety training required for all participants was carefully analyzed to identify specific mechanical skills not easily acquired by passively watching videos. Once the content was identified, six modules incorporating hands-on engagement, were developed. Each module was designed to be completed within 20 – 25 minutes. The incoming graduate students are divided into groups of 6 – 9 students (depending upon the size of the incoming class) and rotate through each of the module. The smaller group size ensures that each student gets to participate in both the mechanical aspects and discussion components for the safety training. For example, each graduate student participates in cleaning up a chemical spill and in pulling a fire extinguisher to extinguish a mock fire. The modules were instructed by peer graduate students to incorporate the peer component with the supervisor of a member of EH&S. Collectively, several mechanical processes were identified as potential concepts for training and include: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Using a fire extinguisher Students extinguish a fire using a real fire extinguisher. This was coordinated with the Stanford fire department who assisted with provided the fire extinguishers at a minimal cost. Subsequent discussion included other types of fires observed in the chemical laboratory and selection of the appropriate fire extinguisher. Working with manifold or vacuum chambers Students work with pressured systems and identify risks and considerations when working with this equipment. Using the safety shower and eye wash station Students experience a live demo of using the safety shower with an undergraduate volunteer. Working with compressed gas cylinders Students are given instructions on using compressed gas cylinders. This includes moving and changing th regulators. Additional considerations and risks are discussed. Responding to accidents and emergencies The lab director or manager facilitated a discussion of the different scenarios that could arise in the teaching laboratories. These scenarios include fire alarm evacuation, responding to cuts and spills, and earthquake response. Responding to chemical spills Students use a chemical spill kit to clean up a large spill. Different chemical spill scenarios are discussed, as well as, the appropriate response. Identification of PPE and usage The script is provided in Table 1 that outlines the scope of the content covered by the module. 198

Each of the modules have scripts like the script for PPE and usage. The scripts are important for outlining how a lesson is presented. It also ensures continuity within subsequent training sessions.

Table 1. A Script for the PPE Selection and Usage

Continued on next page.

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Table 1. (Continued). A Script for the PPE Selection and Usage

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Discussion and Assessment There were two evaluations of the teaching assistant and safety training program for assessment and recalibration as needed. The first evaluation was in the form of a small group evaluation (SGE) (25) in which first year teaching assistants, who had completed the training six months earlier, were pulled together and asked leading questions. The SGE was conducted by an independent consultant who is not affiliated with environmental health and safety or the department of chemistry. During the SGE, the 11 teaching assistants, who volunteered to participate in the SGE, had a quarter of teaching experience providing a strong basis for reflecting and identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the teaching assistant training program. Collectively, the safety program received positive comments. Teaching assistants with a lot of research experience did note that the safety training seemed basic or redundant at times, but they noted that it was helpful to receive details specifically related to the teaching laboratory. Overall, when polled during the SGE, 91% of the trainers noted that the safety training program increased their confidence regarding understanding and implementing safety policies while teaching laboratory sessions. A second assessment was conducted to gauge student’s perception about each module with the goal of identifying which modules may need to be recalibrated. A Likert scale of 1 – 5 was used to gauge students’ perceptions given the prompt, rank the effectiveness of the indicated safety training module. The data (N=31) is plotted below in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Summary of the Likert rating defining the graduate students’ perception of each module.

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Because of the success observed with the hands-on training in chemistry, the approach has been expanded to other departments on campus. In 2017, chemical engineering introduced a hands-on approach and implemented comparable modules with specific variations to make the discussions more relevant for chemical engineering. Furthermore, additional modules are being created in chemistry to provide specialized training for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows at multiple times during the year. Training sessions will be offered to undergraduate chemistry majors as they begin enrolling in more advanced courses. New modules are being designed jointly with graduate students in the chemistry department and EH&S to reinforce and support existing EH&S training. Two recent modules cover cryogen safety and handling and more in-depth risk assessment approaches.

Conclusions and Future Objectives The hands-on safety training program promoted confidence for first year graduate students in assuming the role of overseeing safety in undergraduate laboratory courses. Currently, additional modules are being expanded. and the hands-on training is being modified and implemented within departments outside of chemistry. Future objectives include more in-depth research explorations into how strongly the hands-on training impacts retention, metacognition, and confidence for graduate students. Finally, the training will be expanded to chemistry majors, and similar research questions regarding retention, metacognition, and confidence will be explored.

Acknowledgments Special thanks given to Larry Gibbs, Mary Dougherty, Sharleen Chan, Craig Barney, and the Stanford EH&S staff who helped design and implement the program. I would also like to thank the numerous TA trainers who helped facilitate the program, as well as, the numerous TAs who participated in the hands-on training and provided feedback for improvement.

References 1. 2. 3. 4.

5.

O’Neal, C.; Wright, M.; Cook, C.; Perorazio, T.; Purkis, J. J. Col. Sci. Teach. 2007, 36 (5), 24–29. Benderly, B. Science, 2016. http://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2016/05/ teaching-safety-skills-not-just-safety-rules (accessed 25 March 2018). Cox, C. T., Jr. Proceedings of the 100th Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition, Toronto, Ontario, 2017. Moran, L.; Masciangioli, T. Chemical Laboratory Safety and Security: A Guide to Prudent Chemical Management; The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016. https://doi.org/10.17226/21918 (accessed May 2018). Dragisich, V.; Keller, V.; Zhao, M. J. Chem. Educ. 2016, 93, 1204–1210. 202

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Chapter 13

Chemical Education in Slovenia: Past Experiences and Future Challenges I. Devetak*, and V. Ferk Savec University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Education, Kardeljeva pl. 16, Ljubljana, Slovenia *E-mail: [email protected]

Chemical education research in Slovenia began in the late 1970s with the first publication by a Slovenian author in a recognized international journal. Since then, research findings have significantly influenced the way chemistry has been considered and learned in Slovenian schools at all levels of education, as well as on the systemic level by influencing curriculum development. In recent decades in Slovenia, significant attention has been devoted to visualization. In the presented chapter, three studies are presented. In the first, pre-service primary school teachers’ understandings of chemical bonds and the triple nature of chemical concepts are illustrated. The next part presents ninth-graders’ and their teachers’ interest in different contexts that can be applied in teaching particles and basic education regarding the periodic table. The third study deals with a collaborative research project in which primary school chemistry teachers were involved. The research is based on the chemistry triplet and focused on combining the context (macro level) with the development of students’ understanding of chemical phenomena at the particle (submicro level) and its notations on the symbolic level.

© 2018 American Chemical Society

Introduction The publication of a paper in the first issue of the first volume of the respected journal, International Journal of Science Education, almost four decades ago, in 1979, can be understood as the beginning of chemical education research in Slovenia. The journal was called European Journal of Science Education in that time and the paper published by respected Slovenian chemical education professor Aleksandra Kornhauser dealt with visionary issues of chemical education. Its title, Trends in Research in Chemical Education, estimated future aspects of research in chemical education following an extensive review of (for that time) recent research in chemical education. The review analyzed some 250 different papers published mainly during the 1975‐77 period, under the following key words: general research in chemical education, content‐oriented research, research into methods of chemical education, teaching aids and the use of educational technology, research in assessment and evaluation (1). Since then, research has significantly influenced chemical education in Slovenia at all levels of education, both on the systemic level in curriculum development as well as in school practice. Trends existing in various research areas are identified, and the needs and priorities for future research are suggested. In this chapter, the Slovenian school system is presented focusing on chemical education followed by the illustration of chemistry teachers’ education. According to the trends presented in the review paper 40 years ago, similar topics remain interesting in the chemical education research community internationally and in the Slovenian context. One of the most current topics that deal with learning abstract chemical concepts on all levels of education from primary to university level is the visualization of chemical concepts; this topic is presented in further detail later in this chapter from the Slovenian point of view.

Chemical Education in the Slovenian School System Slovenian primary school education is organized in a single-structure nineyear basic school for students aged 6 to 15 years. It is mandatory, 99% public, and state financed. After entering basic compulsory nine-year education, students in primary education (aged 6-11; grades 1-5; Learning about the Environment and Science and Technology courses) learn basic science concepts including chemical concepts, such as states of matter, mixtures and pure substances, basic separation methods, burning, air and water pollution and solutions. On the next level of basic education, lower secondary school, students (aged 12-13; grades 6-7; Science course) upgrade their knowledge of basic science concepts. They learned about chemical reactions, they distinguish between elements and compounds, and they become familiar with particles of matter. In the last two years of compulsory basic education, students (aged 14-15; grades 8-9: Chemistry course) develop more specific chemical knowledge, because they are engaged in two years of chemistry class. Topics range from the structure of atoms and molecules to chemical reactions, properties of elements 206

and their compounds to acids and bases, and organic chemistry topics (e.g. hydrocarbons, oxygen, and organic nitrogen compounds). After finishing basic compulsory education, students can proceed to the next stage, which is two to four years of non-compulsory education. This upper secondary education encompasses: 1) four-year general education (Gimnazija), which prepares students to enter university and concludes with the Matura exam (external national final exam); and 2) vocational and technical education, with programs of various levels of difficulty (two- to four-year programs). In Gimnazija, students learn chemistry for three years, and those who choose chemistry as a Matura exam subject prepare for the external exam for an additional year. Chemistry topics are similar to those in lower secondary school, but upgraded (e.g. orbitals of the atoms, chemical equilibrium, redox reactions, organic chemical reactions, etc.). Vocational and technical education programs can have from zero to three years of chemical education, depending on the nature of the program (e.g. economics, pharmacy). We can conclude that Slovenian students who finish general secondary school enter the university program with five years of chemical education, and those who finish the chemistry Matura exam, complete six years of advanced chemical education (2).

Chemistry Teachers’ Education in Slovenia Teacher education is regulated by legislation instituted by the Ministry of Education and Sports. Teachers are required to have five years of initial teacher education (master’s level) in Slovenia. Exceptions are pre-school teachers and teachers of professional subjects in vocational and technical upper secondary education, who must have at least three years of initial teacher education (3, 4). Teachers must also pass the State Teacher Certification Examination, which is taken before the National Examination Board for professional competency examinations in the field of education, which is appointed by the Ministry of Education. The education of subject teachers (e.g. to teach chemistry at lower secondary school) takes place predominantly at the Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana, but for upper secondary school also at the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology at the University of Ljubljana or the Faculty of Science and Mathematics at the University of Maribor. In the 2009/10 academic year, all the education faculties enrolled students of the 1st year into new Bologna study programs, the reform of which began in 2003/04. The generations of students that have been enrolled into the Bologna study program will have to complete a second-cycle study program and attain a Master’s degree (altogether 300 ECTS) to be able to enter the teaching profession (5). The Faculty of Education of the University of Ljubljana educates and trains teachers (from preschool teachers, primary school teachers and two-subject teachers (e.g. chemistry; see Figure 1 for the structure of the educational program) and fine art teachers) and other education experts (e.g. social pedagogy; special education) Graduates of all study program acquire, in the course of their studies, 207

a number of competencies of educational experts as well as general and academic competencies. Studying at the Faculty of Education at the University of Ljubljana is linked to practice through a quality partnership with educational institutions, enabling students to enhance the knowledge acquired at the faculty with practical experience and connect it to the practice under the supervision of good mentors (6). The Faculty of Education has developed master and doctoral study programs, because it is aware of the urgent need to educate top and specialized experts who would ensure the further development of the educational practice in Slovenia (6).

Figure 1. The structure of chemistry teacher education program in Slovenia at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Education.

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Past and Future Perspectives on National Chemical Education Research: The Case of Visualization in Chemical Education It can be determined that because chemistry is inherently complex (7), teachers and teaching materials play an essential role in presenting complex chemistry concepts to students. For stimulating the development of students’ adequate mental models of specific chemical concepts, visualization methods are unique tools to illustrate, more or less adequately, based on known chemical facts, the concepts that students need to learn and develop chemical literacy. Model that presents these relations is already published (8, 9). Following these aspects of learning chemistry, different studies have been conducted in the Slovenian context in an attempt to understand the importance of visualization methods for learning and using visuals to identify students’ knowledge of specific concepts. For the purposes of this chapter, three studies have been selected and presented.

First Study: Understanding Chemical Bonding The purpose of the first study deals with pre-service primary school teachers’ understanding of one of the basic concepts in chemistry, chemical bonding (CBST achievement test), after finishing secondary school and before enrolment into university science courses. It also deals with their ability to correlate their knowledge of chemical bonds with the submicrolevel (the instrument used chemical bonds at submicrolevel test (CBST); and how their achievements are connected with their secondary school chemistry experience. In Slovenian primary and secondary school textbooks, chemical bonds are presented quite traditionally, and teachers also use such explanations, accounting for the students’ types of conceptions (misconceptions) about chemical bonds. Understanding these chemical concepts is essential prior to introducing a context-based chemistry course at the university level to pre-service primary school teachers, as these topics are founded on sound basic chemical concepts. Three research questions were developed: (1) What are students’ conceptions of chemical bonds at the end of secondary education in relation to the submicroscopic level of chemical concepts?; (2) Is there a significant difference in CBST scores between students from different secondary schools in Slovenia?; and (3) Is there a significant difference in CBST scores between students that view secondary chemistry as a positive or negative experience? Students participating in this study learned about the basic concepts of covalent and ionic bonds in primary school (aged 13 and 14) in Slovenia. They upgraded these concepts in secondary school and learned about metal bonds and intermolecular bonds (students aged 15). Research shows (see review by (10)) that these concepts are identified by both teachers and learners as difficult and highly abstract, so misconceptions are common, also at the university level. It is also important to link the chemical bond concepts with the structure of the matter and its properties when learning about substances. To correctly understand chemical bonding and its influence on substance properties it is important to develop students’ visualization abilities. Furthermore, it is crucial to understand 209

the relations between the structure of substances and its particles (11, 12) which should be presented by different visualization approaches (i.e. models, submicrorepresentations). Prain and Waldrip (13) reported that those students who recognized relationships between different representations of concepts demonstrated better understanding than students who lacked this knowledge. Waldrip, Prain, and Carolan (14) also argue that, in order to maximize the effectiveness of designed representations, it is necessary to consider the diversity of learner background knowledge, expectations, preferences, and interpretive skills. Furthermore, research has identified numerous misconceptions about chemical bonds throughout the world (15–17). Altogether, 119 first year pre-service primary school teachers participated in the study; 92.4% females and 7.6% males. On average, they were 19.4 years old (SD=.72). The sample represented an urban and rural population with mixed socioeconomic status from all areas of the country. Participants’ backgrounds in chemical bonding was reflected through their previous schooling. They had all were primary school (age 13-14; two years of chemical education), and 73.1% of participants had finished general secondary school (Gimnazija) (age 15-17; three years of chemical education); however, 26.9% of participants had finished some other secondary schools with less than three years of chemical education. In primary school, they attended chemistry classes when they were 13 years old; approximately 10 lessons were dedicated to learning about the formation of ionic bonds, covalent bonds (single, double and triple) and the structure of simple molecules (polar and non-polar covalent bonds and molecules), and linking chemical structures of compounds (ionic substances and covalent compounds) with their properties using different models, animations, and sub-micro-representations. In secondary school, when they were about 15 years old, the aims of primary school were upgraded. In approximately eight lessons, they learned how to distinguish between the formation of ionic bonds/ionic crystals and covalent bonds/molecules, that the strength of the bond (single, double, triple) reflects its length and energy, how to define the concept of electronegativity and its influence on the chemical bonds, to distinguish between bonding and non-bonding electron pairs and to identify them in the structural formulas of simple molecules, to explain the metallic bond and its impact on the physical properties of metals, to describe the intermolecular bonds and their influence on the physical properties of compounds, to explain the main characteristics of molecular crystals, to perform comparative analysis of the characteristics of the selected substances (ionic, covalent and metal) and associate the data to their structure at the submicroscopic level, and to develop spatial abilities using different models, animations and submicrorepresentations of the substance’s structure. The instruments used in this study were a five-item paper-pencil knowledge test with 75 sub-items about chemical bonds at the sub-microlevel (CBST), analyzing sub-micro-representations and the figures of physical models. The items were multiple-choice and open-ended, and students had to write the names of compounds, type of bonds, structure formulae, and the type of particle, and to draw sub-micro-representations. Participants could achieve 66.5 points. The content validity was achieved by the fact that the content of CBST was in 210

accordance with national curriculums. The reliability was satisfactory, Cronbach’s α = 0.76. Items’ discriminate indexes were between 0.63 and 0.72: all statistically significant (p≤0.000). Students spend about 30 minutes completing the test. A 20-item online questionnaire about students’ experiences with chemistry in secondary school (ESCQ) was also used. Students’ attitudes towards secondary school chemistry were measured. A five-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 - not at all true to 5 - very true, was used. The reliability was satisfactory, Cronbach’s α = 0.71. On average, students spend ten minutes completing the questionnaire. The findings suggested that pre-service primary school teachers’ conceptions about chemical bonds (RQ1) are average. They scored 23.6 points (SD=7.6; Min=10.5; Max=45.0; 35.4% of all points). Numerous misconceptions or incomplete conceptions of chemical bonding and its influence on substance structure or properties were identified. Here are the percentages of participants that showed specific misconceptions: (1) in nitrogen, the molecule is ionic bond (19.3%); (2) in calcium, it a is covalent (21.0%) or ionic (16.8%) bond; (3) in sodium chloride, it is a covalent (23.4%) bond; (4) in a water molecule, it is an ionic (8.4%) or hydrogen (26.9%) bond; (5) in a carbon dioxide molecule, it is an ionic (9.2%) bond; (6) in an ethyne molecule, it is an ionic (5.0%) or hydrogen (5.9%) bond; (7) in an ammonia molecule, it is an ionic (10.9%) or hydrogen (12.6%) bond. Pre-service primary school students also assumed that in ionic crystals particles are bonded with a covalent bond (7.6%), and in molecular crystals with a covalent (13.4%) or ionic (7.6%) bond. They also expressed that in metallic crystals, there are covalent (11.7%) or ionic (6.7%) bonds. The second research question dealt with the differences in TCBS scores between students attending different types of secondary school. There were statistically significant differences in TCBS scores between students who finished general secondary school (Gimnazija: at least five years of chemical education) (M=24.6; SD=7.9) and those who finished other secondary schools (less than five years of chemical education) (M=20.9; SD=5.9) [t = 2.37; df=117; p = .019]. The final results show the differences in CBST scores between students regarding their attitude towards secondary school chemistry (RQ4). ANOVA showed no significant differences between students with low (M=20.4; SD=6.7); average (M=24.9; SD=7.8) and high (M=25.3; SD=6.8) attitudes towards secondary school chemistry in the chemistry bond knowledge test (CBST) achievements [F(2, 98) = 2.45; p=.084]. A post hoc analysis shows the only significant difference between students’ scores on CBST between low and average attitude towards secondary school chemistry (p=.032). Some implications of the results for teaching chemistry in the primary, secondary, and university levels can be suggested. It is essential to educate teachers to apply adequate models to explain the chemical bond. It is necessary to suggest to the textbook authors to reconsider their mental models about chemical bonds and use adequate explanations. They must be careful not to de-motivate students to learn more abstract concepts with no understanding of what they mean, and that that age (the development of mental abilities) of students should be considered. It is important to emphasize that constant monitoring of students’ progression in chemical bond conceptions is necessary at all levels of education. Teaching concepts about chemical bonds at the university level 211

should be challenging enough for Gimnazija students and adjusted to those who have poorer pre-knowledge with pedagogies that facilitate learning (collaborative learning, ICT learning, additional homework, approaches that stimulate thinking about the concepts, etc.). Students’ experience (positive or negative) with chemistry in secondary school does not significantly influence their retention of chemical bonding knowledge, but the students’ overall experience with secondary school chemistry is rather poor. Professional development programs for chemistry teachers should be developed to stimulate them to organize such a learning climate that students would benefit from classroom activities as much as possible. Motivating and context-based learning should be the focus of teaching in secondary school chemistry to encourage students’ meaningful learning.

Second Study: Students’ Interest in Contexts It is also essential to emphasize the meaning of context-based chemical education that can support visualization methods used in the classroom. Putting abstract concepts not just in some sort of visualization mode, but also in the specific context that is interesting for students can stimulate effective learning.

Figure 2. The 4C model of the relationship between concept and context in chemistry teaching and learning. 212

To present the results in this chapter, only the topic Particles and the Periodic Table was selected. These aspects of chemistry teaching at all levels of education were neglected in Slovenia in the past, but we are currently also implementing them into chemistry teacher education at the university level. It is important to emphasize that different contexts used in science education have positive impact on students’ knowledge and interest for learning science (19) and how interesting different contexts might be for students in primary school and their teachers is still open for debate. Context is partially presented in Slovenian chemistry textbooks, and there is no teaching material that integrates context as a major part of topics presented (18). We asked fifty chemistry teachers and 200 primary school students in Grade 9 to identify which specific context are the most interesting for them to illustrate specific chemical topics in the primary school chemistry curriculum.

Figure 3. The sample of the item in the students’ and teachers’ questionnaire. Teachers were also asked which context according to their opinion based on in class experiences would be the most interesting for students. The framework of this study was a classification of different contexts that can be integrated into teaching chemistry (see Figure 2). Figure 3 shows the presentation of the item in the questionnaire. The items were developed using a pictorial and textual description of the context. Each context was developed following the 4C model (Figure 2) by applying one of the seven different natures of context that could be used to cover chemistry 213

curriculum content. The results indicate that topic teachers should understand students’ interests when dealing with context for specific subjects. This means that everyday interesting contexts should be selected. Figure 4 shows that students are interested in fireworks (every-day attractive context) and not in historical aspects of context such as Mendeleev for the topic of the periodic table.

Figure 4. The percentage of ninth-graders with the specific opinion about contexts selected for presenting the topic Particles and the Periodic table. New technology might be interested if presented adequately, but only one fifth of ninth-graders expressed the interest in the Large Hadron Collider.

Figure 5. The percentage of teachers with specific opinions regarding students’ interest in the specific contexts selected for presenting the topic Particles and the Periodic table. 214

Figure 5 shows that teachers correctly anticipated students’ interest in fireworks and that historical context would be the least interesting. However, they evaluated the contemporary technology context much as less interesting than the students did. It can be concluded that teachers should discuss with students which context would be most interesting for them for the specific chemical content, offering them some examples on which later explanation of specific chemical concepts would take place.

Third Study: Teachers’ Reflections on the Use of Context The third study deals with the collaborative action research based on the chemistry triplet (20) and focused on combining of the context (macro level) with the development of students’ understanding of chemical phenomena at the particle (sub-micro level) and its notations on the symbolic level.

Figure 6. An example of the structure of a teaching unit. Based on the chemistry triplet idea, in the action research, a Life – Observations – Notations (LON) teaching approach was developed (21) and applied to the topics chemical reactions with regard to the aims of the National Chemistry Curriculum for elementary schools. The intention of using the LON approach was to facilitate students’ holistic understanding of chemical reactions, thereby starting from discussions about selected everyday life situations, through which students would learn to recognize reactants and products and develop observational skills to follow the changes that occur during chemical reactions in 215

everyday life situations as well as in similar examples of chemical reactions in laboratory environments (macro level). Next, the chemistry teachers would lead students to write down reactants and products in the form of word equations and further on to present chemical reactions with the use of static models and animations of chemical reactions (submicro level) towards the use of symbolic notations of chemical reactions and their balancing (symbolic level). The final phase of the LON approach is to facilitate the consolidation of the students’ gained knowledge and their ability to use the knowledge in new situations. An example of a section of a teaching unit is presented in Figure 6. In total, 226 primary school students in Grade 9 were involved in the research (53.1% females and 46.9% males) at six primary schools in Slovenia. On average, students were 13.2 years old (SD=.68). The six chemistry teachers (6 females, 16.8 years of teaching experience), who were teaching at these schools wrote reflective diaries on a daily basis about their teaching experience with the LON approach. These reflective diaries were examined to answer the following research question: according to teachers’ reflections, how does the LON teaching approach contribute to students’ more holistic understanding of chemical reactions? Two researchers independently analyzed the reflective diaries and grouped the natural units of meaning into individual rubrics. Finally, to reduce bias issues, through discussion, reconstruction and agreement, both researchers came to the final version of the rubric, which enabled a 95% inter-rater reliability about the categorization of the analyzed items. From the analysis of the teachers’ reflective diaries, it was possible to conclude that teachers were pointing to students’ holistic understanding of chemical reactions from three different viewpoints: (1) everyday life situations are the foundation of the learning process, (2) the learning process involves many students’ activities, and (3) chemical reactions are consistently presented on all three levels of representation. The comprehension of students’ holistic understanding of chemical reactions by the particular teacher involved one or the combination of more of the above viewpoints. More detailed elaborations for each of the viewpoints follow: (1) Everyday life situations are the foundation of the learning process. Consequently, students’ comprehend chemical reactions as something which is occurring in their everyday life and is therefore interesting for them. That point seemed to be important to all the participating teachers since in many places of their outlines of reflective diaries they stated something like: For the first time, I tried to teach about chemical synthesis reactions by challenging students with a question about whether the synthesis of water could be used as an energy source for vehicles. The classroom discussion was then led towards reading newspaper articles dealing with the topics, which proved to be a good motivation for students. Instead, in previous years, I demonstrated to students the experiments of 216

synthesis between magnesium and iodine, and zinc and sulfur, which were not related to everyday life and, therefore, gained much less attention from students. [Teacher 3] The starting point of the learning process, cleaning of contact lenses, was a good choice, namely students showed great interest in learning (connection to everyday life!). [Teacher 2] (2) The learning process involves many students’ activities – students’ interest increased because they liked playing active roles in the learning process (e.g. hands-on experiments, construction of representations of chemical reactions with the use of models) and those who were not used to such approaches from earlier also made sound improvement in their experimental skills and gained experiences with the work with models. In reflective diaries of all teachers’ statements to support this point could be found, e.g.: Students were very motivated for their own conducting of experimental work. None of the students’ groups had difficulties in recognizing the signs of chemical reactions, because students helped each other. [Teacher 3] In the beginning, students were not keen to conduct experiments by themselves, but when they got more experience, they started to enjoy it. [Teacher 6] The homework assignments related to everyday life provided excellent student feedback. Despite it not being foreseen in the LON teaching plan, due to students’ great interest, we prepared an exhibition of different home-made models for the presentation of the coal burning reaction. Most students were very inventive in the selection of materials for homemade models for the representation of chemical reactions on the particle level. [Teacher 3] The developed approach puts students in an active role and increased their motivation for learning. Higher cognitive processes are also emphasized, because students have to make the analyses and the conclusions. [Teacher 4] (3) Chemical reactions are consistently presented on all three levels of representation (macro, sub-micro, and symbolic), and the establishment of links between those levels by students is supported. Therefore, students experience chemical equations as the descriptions of visible substance and energy changes accompanying chemical reactions and their interest in learning rises: chemical equations are perceived as something meaningful and understandable. Interestingly, despite the 217

continuous implementation of the three levels of representation being a crucial part of the LON approach, only in the reflective diaries of two teachers (from schools with the best students’ results on the Knowledge Test; School 3 and School 4) was that factor also regarded as a potential reason for increasing students’ interest; they stated the following in their outlines of the reflective diaries: The initial everyday situation (use of fuel cells) proved to be a valuable starting point for relating observations in chemical reactions with their explanation with models, which is a foundation for students’ better understanding of the notation of a balanced chemical equation. Students are more interested in learning what is meaningful to them. [Teacher 3] Students realized that chemical reactions do not only take place in a laboratory but also in everyday life situations and that chemical equations are the descriptions of chemical reactions using chemical language; therefore, they did not consider them as something isolated to be learned by heart as was often the case in previous years. [Teacher 4]

Conclusion In the previous decade, chemical education research in Slovenia has focused on different topics. Studies incorporate the use of visualization elements (e.g. sub-micro-representations, different models, animations using ICT, etc.) in teaching. More emphasis has been dedicated to studying the application of context-based chemistry teaching and learning with different experimental support that teachers can demonstrate in the classroom or students can do by themselves. It is essential to mention that most recently the use of eye-tracking in processing visualization materials at triple levels of the presentation of chemical concepts in learning chemistry have been emphasized.

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Chapter 14

Transforming Chemistry Class with Technology-Enhanced Active Inquiry Learning for the Digital Native Generation Niwat Srisawasdi* Faculty of Education, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand 40002 *E-mail: [email protected].

In an era of global changes, advancements in digital technologies and instructional science call for an updated conceptualization for creating effective pedagogical approach of technology-enhanced learning environment. It aims to address current educational challenges for today’s digital native learners. In terms of chemistry education, the orchestration of digital technologies and inquiry-based pedagogy has become a challenge issue for facilitating the learning of chemical-related concepts. Currently, there is a little literature considering the development of technology-enhanced learning environment to support inquiry-based learning in chemistry. The chapter presents principle considerations in design and development of technology-enhanced active inquiry approach for chemistry learning. It also illustrates two case examples of using the transformed learning approach in enhancing chemistry learning of ionization energy and chemical equilibrium. In addition, it reveals benefits of the learning approach in improving students’ conceptual learning performance in chemistry. These could be a guideline for researchers, practitioners, or developers on how to transform chemistry class into an innovative technology-enhanced learning environment, where technological affordances of digital technologies are used to facilitate current generation learners’ inquiry-based learning process.

© 2018 American Chemical Society

Introduction In our current societies, there has been a new population emerging from young people born since digital technologies were embedded in social life, sometime in the 1980s (1). Recently, digital technologies embedded in our society and today’s digital native learners have grown up with those technologies. The advancement of digital technological now shape the way they live and the way they learn. In particular, digital forms of information and communication are increasingly transforming what it means to work, live, and study. With digital technology advancements, it is not only transforming the everyday life of Thais and, particularly, the younger generation, but also influencing the learning preference of Thai today’s learners. However, in the past decades, the implementation and growth of digital technologies for learning remain uneven for kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) schools across the Thai nation. With benefits of the most up-to-date technology in the twenty-first century education, digital technologies and learning resources have increasingly played important roles in science-based education. Recent research has indicated that the digital technologies can effectively facilitate students’ learning in science lessons (2). In the past, technology in chemistry education has not always been well received, but it is, nowadays, accepted to be an integral part of chemistry teaching and learning (3). Digital technologies change the way students learn and the way teachers teach chemistry. The development of active, engaging, and aligned learning environment in chemistry class has been becoming a key trend in chemistry teachers and educators, and educational researchers and developers. In recent years, many chemistry-related digital instructional materials, such as probeware, interactive video, animation and simulation, digital game, mobile applications, augmented and virtual reality, and web-based environment, for instruction are emerging. These digital materials have been applied in many ways to assist students and teachers in the rhythm of learning and teaching process. However, such digital technologies call for partnerships in which pedagogies are involved in the instructional reform. The effectiveness of digital technologies for learning is closely connected to the pedagogy through which they are employed (4). It is important that the incorporation of digital technology does not detract from the pedagogy, instead it should strategically add to the teaching approach (5). As such, the innovative and pedagogic use of digital technologies in chemistry has been called worldwide and has gradually penetrated into the publicly funded school system in Thailand over the past ten years. The paradigm shift from teacher-centered approach toward the studentcentered approach occurred in the last two decades for Thailand (6). Accordingly, promoting the implementation of the student-centered approach integrated inquiry in chemistry classroom has been the central focus of Thailand basic education core curriculum. That is to say, inquiry-based learning approach plays important role for chemistry education in this nation. In context of Thailand, chemistry education is sometimes criticized for being too traditional in its approach to teaching. However, technology-infused innovative practice is becoming ever more embedded into chemistry teaching and learning activities. Regarding the student-centered approach, researchers mentioned that learning in chemistry 222

through scientific inquiry-based approach is a key instructional practice or learning process, which is concerned about the cognitive development of the learner and constructivist ideas of the nature of science (7, 8). Thus, the inquiry pedagogy has proven its efficacy at both primary and secondary levels by increasing the students’ interest and attainment level in chemistry (9, 10). To promote digital native students’ learning performance in chemistry, inquiry-based learning with the enhancement of digital technology offers new opportunities to facilitate the ability to store and manipulate large quantities of information, the ability to present and permit interaction with information in a variety of visual and audio formats, the ability to perform complex computations, the support for communication and expression, and the ability to respond rapidly and individually to them (11). Technology-enhanced active inquiry learning is a promising area for chemistry education in Thailand. It offers new and exciting opportunities for both teachers and learners. There are many challenges to the successful implementation of the technology-enhanced active inquiry learning in chemistry. In the following sections, the instructional design and development of technology-enhanced active inquiry learning modules in chemistry is described. Then, two case of renovated inquiry-based learning approach with the support of digital technologies (i.e. computer simulation and digital game) is presented to demonstrate how the chemistry learning modules are constructed for promoting favorable chemistry learning environment to the digital native students.

Instructional Design and Development Development of Technology-Enhanced Active Inquiry Learning Approach and Environment The principle considerations for transforming inquiry-based learning with the support of digital technology were divided into three features as follows:

The Approaches Are Situated on Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) In the digital age, mobile technologies have become embedded and ubiquitous in students’ lives. Nowadays, more and more learners bring their own mobile devices wherever they go for their learning and communication needs. In recent years, leveraging student learning engagement with the support of mobile technology through the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) model is increasingly important in today’s education. BYOD refers to technology models where the students bring a personally owned device to school for the purpose of learning (12). Researchers reported that students, who used their own mobile devices to learn seamlessly, had good learning achievement and revealed positive attitude toward the BYOD learning (12, 13). In the light of this idea, the renovated inquiry-based learning in chemistry regarding BYOD has been developed particularly with technological affordances of digital game and interactive simulation. Such that the students can use their own mobile device to facilitate their own learning in places. In BYOD learning activities, in order to 223

improve the students’ domain knowledge gains and learning skills (i.e., inquiry), the pedagogical design of using their own mobile devices is very important for developing technology-enhanced active inquiry learning (13).

The Approaches Are an Inquiry-Oriented Learning Process Similar to many other countries around the world, achieving scientific literacy in precollege schooling is the central goal to the science education reform in Thailand. Moreover, inquiry-based teaching and learning has served as the benchmark for science education reforms in worldwide (6). As the abovementioned, the use of technology, e.g. BYOD, alone would be insufficient to foster learning without the adoption of appropriate pedagogies (13, 14). The pedagogy of inquiry-based learning is accepted worldwide. Using inquiry centered tasks in secondary chemistry has been widely demonstrated its efficacy on improvement of chemistry literacy (15). However, more and more evidences indicated that the highly structured inquiry practices providing questions, theory, experimental, and analytic procedures were not sufficient in developing scientific learning performance (16–19). According to the evidence, engaging learners into a more flexible, open-ended, and integrated way of inquiry-type investigations and practices has been emphasized in the proposed approach. Researchers reported that open-ended inquiry learning process targeted student-centered instructional techniques revealed better learning outcomes and more positive perceptions regarding the learning environment in science (17–19).

The Approaches Are Revised and Refined According to Empirical Studies To develop the effective approach for technology-enhanced learning environment, a design-based approach (20) was used to understand how the instructional innovations impact students’ learning ecology in terms of facilitating their learning preferences and styles, and changing of norms in teacher-student and student-content interactions and in the ways students deal with particular tasks in digital learning. Based on this perspective, the development of pedagogical approach regarding technology-enhanced inquiry learning environment was conducted by the two-phase study methods to evaluate and investigate the influence of the instructional approaches. The researcher used design experiments to improve the initial design of the learning materials and approaches by testing and analyzing the ongoing student learning status, such as perception, motivation, or attitude, as well as the learning environment. After eliciting of students’ learning status, the researcher identified set of pedagogical and technological features in which the instructional approach lack in order to re-design the technology-enhanced active inquiry learning environment. Then, a series of chemistry learning events has been defined and created effective learning activities to facilitate the learning of chemistry phenomena.

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Rationale for Designing Digital Content in Chemistry Learning Modules The underlying rationale for designing content-specific chemistry learning modules was divided into three bases as follows:

The Modules Are Designed with Regards to Chemistry Learning Standard and Indicators in the National Curriculum Reform efforts in science education call for new instructional materials to improve science teaching and learning (21). To improve the quality of Thailand’s science education, the national science education goals, standards, and indicators have been established, and scientific inquiry performance and understanding of the nature of science are the emphasized learning outcomes for students (6). Regarding the Thailand compulsory education core curriculum in chemistry, the established national curriculum guidelines, which are kinds of chemistry content and scientific competency, should be taught and developed at a particular level. To develop curriculum materials, there were two aspects that the researchers and developers need to concentrated: (1) rigorous treatment of science-learning goals representing standards at the different levels; and (2) use of innovative pedagogical approaches to make science learning more meaningful and to support learners in authentic scientific practices (21). In chemistry, working with standards poses challenges for design of curriculum materials (i.e. digital contents and learning modules), and the researcher adopted the learning-goals-driven design model (21) to produce digital content, such as digital game and interactive simulation, in chemistry learning modules.

The Modules Are Designed To Focus on Chemical Knowledge Representations Chemical representations serve as a cornerstone to guide the teaching of chemistry concepts. To understand chemistry, students were required the ability to use multiple chemical representations as illustrated by Johnstone’s three levels of representing chemical knowledge: macroscopic, microscopic, and symbolic representation (22). Johnstone (23) proposed that a well-developed understanding of chemistry concepts requires multiple levels of thought. The macroscopic domain is described as those things that are tangible and visible. Submicroscopic, often synonymous with particulate, depicts atoms, molecules, ions, or chemical structures, while the symbolic level includes representations that use characters (letters, numbers, and symbols) to represent relationships among chemical phenomena (23). For the development of digital content in chemistry learning modules, the chemical representations play an important role to serve as a visualization tool for learning abstract concepts, provide a more complete picture of the chemical process, and lead to a deeper conceptual understanding in chemistry. The pedagogic implication from this model, which is visualization methods (i.e., digital game, animation, and simulations) should be explicitly 225

designed to support student development of a scientifically correct mental model through a comprehension of these three chemical representations (22).

The Modules Are Designed with Regards to Mental Model Construction Learning chemistry involves understanding and relating chemical phenomena at macroscopic, symbolic, and particulate levels. Students must acquire a comprehension of concepts by construction of mental models in their minds (22). The mental models allow them to go beyond a surface understanding of the presented information and to build deeper comprehension of concepts in a domain, e.g. chemistry (24). In the design and development of digital contents in chemistry, there is a call for effective sensory experiences, visualizations, and models of chemical systems to promote the internalization of abstract models that allow students to understand chemical processes and concepts. To facilitate the construction of mental model in chemistry from visualization technology, an integrated cognitive model of multimedia learning (22) has been used to design the integration of external visual representations, such as picture, image, diagram, and text, for activating students’ long-term memory when the verbal and pictorial representations are integrated together. In addition, the visual representations must be presented in a manner that is appropriate to the learning task and thematically relevant to the underlying conceptual framework of the multimedia visualizations for reducing cognitive overload in short-term memory (24, 25). In the following sections, two case examples of technology-enhanced active inquiry learning in the different digital technologies and content areas in chemistry will be presented to illustrate the transforming of chemistry learning modules and its effects on students’ learning. This chapter presents innovative instructional ideas about the teaching of chemistry using digital technology. The design and implementation of the technology-enhanced active inquiry learning are described in detail in the learning approach section by emphasizing being placed on the digital materials used in the study (i.e. digital game and simulation). Then, the results are presented at the end. The chapter ends with the main conclusions.

Example One: Student-Associated Game-Based Open Inquiry Learning in Chemistry of Ionization Energy Overview The topic of ionization energy (IE) is important as the concepts involved providing the foundation for the understanding of atomic structure, periodic trends and energetics of reactions. Chemistry knowledge of ionization energy is recognized as a difficult topic to learn regarded its abstraction and complication. Moreover, it involves formal explanations of invisible interactions between particles at a molecular level. Accordingly, this chemistry concept is a common topic area that students often hold alternative conceptions. The students also expressed that it is not an interesting and a boring topic area, which certainly demands more attention to raise its status. To transform conventional teaching 226

and learning about ionization energy, this study proposed a transformed inquiry learning method, called Student-associated Game-based Open Inquiry (SAGOI), to enhance students’ conceptual development of ionization energy in chemistry.

Learning Approach The intervention in this study was the IE Game, which is a digital game focusing on essential concepts of ionization energy. The digital game was specially developed to facilitate high school students’ learning on definition of ionization energy and factors related ionization energy by group and period of periodic table. In addition, the digital game was designed to require the students to consistently shift between increasingly complex rules of learning events about ionization energy. The game consists of three mini-games or courses: IE war; IE key trend; and IE matching. For the minigames, the aims of the IE war and IE key trend are to facilitate students’ understanding of definition and the trend of ionization energy regarding group of the periodic table caused by factors of nuclear charge, and the atomic size, respectively. Another, the IE matching, interactively provides the students to understand the trend of ionization energy by period of periodic table caused by factors of electron configuration. For all minigames, students can earn coins while taking the correct steps, in ten levels of difficulty for playing. As the game levels increased, the rules become increasingly more complex, involving more limited time to react. The quicker reaction times are required because the chemical elements fall at a faster rate. During playing the minigames, the students receive an increased score regarding performing the right action (e.g. selecting a correct bullet of energy to shoot chemical element) and procedures by means of information cards. When they perform an action incorrectly or does not apply the right order of procedures, a playing trial heart is lost in each time. The maximum number of trial is three for completing a mission. If they cannot complete the mission, they can try again until meeting the right action. At the end of every minigame, an overview of the earned scores is depicted. Figure 1 displays an example of the IE war minigame on a tablet personal computer.

Figure 1. An illustrative example of screen shot from the IE war game. 227

To enhance students’ conceptual chemistry learning on ionization energy, a pedagogy of SAGOI was proposed in this study. SAGOI is a transformed approach of collaborative inquiry learning by integrating digital game in open-inquiry learning process. This approach begins with an open-ended driving question targeted to alternative conceptions commonly found in students. To assist the process of claim generation addressed the question, the students receive essential scientific backgrounds. Then, they are required to generate possible claim, design an exploration with digital game, analyze the data with the support of google spreadsheet, communicate results from game playing, and draw a conclusion based on evidence and test the claim in group working. Results A total of 70 student-respondents in the eleventh grade with age ranging from 15 to 16 years in a local public school located at the northeastern region of Thailand participated in this study. All of them were female. They came from two classes and they were assigned to an experimental group (N = 35) and a control group (N = 35). The students in the experimental group interacted with SAGOI approach, while those in the control group learned with conventional teaching approach. A two-tier multiple-choice test was used to collect data regarding students’ conceptual understanding on ionization energy. In the experiment of intervention, the students were examined conceptual understanding of ionization energy both before and after interacting with the SAGOI intervention (each 20 minutes). The learning activities with the same learning content were lasted 230 minutes for both groups of students. In this study, the same teacher instructed the students in both groups for avoiding the influence of the different experienced teachers on the experimental results. The results of nonparametric Mann-Whitney U test showed that there is a statistically significant difference, Z(n=70) = -2.070; p