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

Representational competence (RC) is a set of skills to reflectively use a variety of representations to draw inferences, make predictions, and support claims. Despite the important role RC plays in student success in chemistry and the considerable number of investigations into student ability to reason with representations, little is known about instructors’ approaches toward developing student RC skills. This case study characterizes organic chemistry instructors’ intentions and practices toward cultivating their students’ RC. Three organic chemistry instructors participated in semi-structured interviews that explored their Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) and goals for developing student RC. Interview data were triangulated with course artifacts data, including lecture slides and assessments. Several frameworks were used to deductively code the interviews and course artifacts: Kozma and Russell's RC, Geddis’ PCK, Ainsworth's functional taxonomy, and Johnstone's triplet. Through triangulation of different data sources and theories, we found differences in instructors’ PCK for teaching with representations, despite teaching the same course at the same institution. There were also differences in the alignment between each participant's instructional goals and what they enact when teaching and assessing representations. Specifically, two of the three instructors expressed explicit goals for developing student RC skills, which mostly aligned with the focus of their course artifacts. One participant, however, did not articulate any RC skills that they aim to teach and assess; yet, course artifacts revealed that they do use activities and assessment items that target some RC skills. This suggests that this instructor teaches and assesses RC skills without realizing it. Implications for instructors and education researchers are presented in light of these findings.

Classroom observation data using tools such as the Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (COPUS) are frequently collected in instructional settings for large-scale research studies ...

Chemistry-specific informal science education (chemistry outreach) is widely practiced across all levels of the chemistry community. College students associated with American Chemical Society and Alpha Chi Sigma collegiate chapters are one population of chemistry outreach practitioners who reach upward of 1 million people every year. Previous studies of this population have characterized their goals/purposes for conducting outreach, their understanding of the chemistry content underlying common demonstrations/activities, as well as their teaching and learning beliefs that they bring to their outreach teaching. The study reported herein provides another characterization of this population’s chemistry outreach practices by focusing on the training experiences they receive prior to facilitating events. Using a combination of inductive and deductive approaches, training experiences and perceived gaps in training are characterized and compared to stages of the Cognitive Apprenticeship Theory. Results indicate ...

College students associated with the American Chemical Society and Alpha Chi Sigma student/collegiate chapters reach almost 1 million people every year through their informal chemistry education events (chemistry outreach). Previous work has characterized their goals for chemistry outreach, with the most prevalent goal being audience learning. With such large audiences being impacted every year and the goal of audience learning, investigating how these college students approach teaching in informal environments is needed to further understand chemistry outreach practices. This paper presents the results of inductive coding focused on teaching beliefs expressed by these college students as they discussed elephant toothpaste and making liquid nitrogen ice cream for second graders, eighth graders, and general chemistry students. Results indicate three broad categories of beliefs: (1) beliefs about the audience, (2) beliefs about the teaching process/pedagogy, and (3) beliefs about the scope and sequence of t...

Informal chemistry education/chemistry outreach is ubiquitous with the chemical enterprise. However, little research has focused on the planning, implementation, or evaluation of these events. Results from a previous study suggest that college students involved with collegiate chapters of the American Chemical Society and Alpha Chi Sigma are heavily involved with chemistry outreach, and their most frequently discussed purpose is to teach chemistry content to their audiences. Given this goal, it is timely to investigate how well these college students, who are acting as teachers in outreach environments, understand the chemistry content embedded in the activities they implement during their events. Presented in this paper are the results of a content analysis of semi-structured interviews (N = 37) focused specifically on student understanding of the elephant toothpaste reaction and making liquid nitrogen ice cream at a general chemistry level. Results show prevalent misunderstandings and misconceptions of ...

Conducting qualitative research in any discipline warrants two actions: accessing participants and eliciting their ideas. In chemistry education research, survey techniques have been used to increase access to participants and diversify samples. Interview tasks (such as card sorting, using demonstrations, and using simulations) have been used to elicit participant ideas. While surveys can increase participation and remove geographic barriers from studies, they typically lack the ability to obtain detailed, thick description of participant ideas, which are possible from in-person interviews. Minimal research in CER has examined how to harness technology to synthesize traditionally diverse research approaches to advance the field. This paper presents a novel method for interviewing research participants employing freely available technology to investigate student ideas about the purposes of conducting chemistry outreach, how success of an outreach event is evaluated, and student understanding of the chemistry content embedded in activities facilitated at events. As the outreach practitioner population comes from numerous institutions and is therefore geographically diverse, technology is necessary in order to gain access to these students. To elicit their ideas and remove barriers associated with rapport, interview tasks are adapted and implemented electronically. The description of a novel set of methods is coupled with evidence from the interviews to illustrate the trustworthiness of the data obtained and to support the method as a means to improve qualitative data collection in chemistry education research. These methods create a unique data collection environment for off-site investigations and are applicable to all disciplines, as they shed light on how qualitative research in the 21st century can increase the diversity of samples and improve the transferability of findings.

Little scholarly investigation of chemistry outreach carried out by undergraduate students in schools and communities has occurred despite widespread practice and monetary investment by large national and international organizations. This study provides the first investigation of these fairly uncharted waters by characterizing expected outcomes of outreach events, the types of activities and chemistry content widely practiced, and how outreach practitioners evaluate the success of events. Results from an open-ended survey deployed nationally to college students and faculty/staff members involved with collegiate chapters of the American Chemical Society and Alpha Chi Sigma are presented. Students and faculty/staff members reported that the most prevalent purposes of chemistry outreach are learning and having fun as a result of attending events, and that events typically involve demonstrations using liquid nitrogen, making slime, and the elephant toothpaste reaction. Differences between students and faculty...

Animations and static visualizations can greatly help students think about concepts on the particulate level. A laboratory activity introducing Crystal Field Theory and Ligand Field Theory was developed based on multiple theories of science learning and pedagogies and combined multiple learning cycles with particulate, macroscopic, and symbolic representations. Through a combination of self-paced online modules and in-class inorganic syntheses, the majority of students met the learning goals relating structure to properties for cobalt(III) complexes.