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A group of National Certificate (NC) Health Care students participated in an applications-based chemistry curriculum intervention. In a previous study, results have indicated that learning chemistry through applications helped to improve the perceived relevance and attitudes towards learning the subject. This paper builds on this earlier work and evaluates the intervention with respect to the Perry Scheme of Intellectual Development. A Perry Developmental Questionnaire was designed and distributed to the same participating students, and explored four main themes: students' perceptions of scientific knowledge, the role of the lecturer, their own role in learning, and the role of assessment. Overall, the results indicated that scientific knowledge was viewed tentatively and that students were highly social in their learning. The lecturer was perceived as a facilitator of learning and assessment was viewed dualistically. (Contains 6 figures and 1 table.)

New chemistry materials were devised for pre university National Certificate (NC) nursing students studying chemistry at a further education college. Previously, preliminary work showed that students felt that the chemistry taught to them was irrelevant, boring and difficult. It was hoped that through an applications-led style curriculum intervention, the chemistry taught would appear to be more accessible and meaningful to student nurses in the context of their lives and careers. This was done by relating the new material, wherever possible, to prior knowledge held by the students from their school experiences, real life working practices, or from their life experiences in general. The order, presentation and sequencing of materials were changed in order to reduce the perceived load on the working memory. In this manner, the learner can focus on important essential material without having to absorb irrelevant detail. It was found that the lecturer and the participating students gave universal support to the new chemistry materials. (Contains 1 note, 8 tables, and 4 figures.)