Previously,
we foun
d that: (i) many stu
dents
were unable to construct representations of simple molecular structures; (ii) a majority of stu
dents fail to make the important connection bet
ween these representations an
d macroscopic properties of the material; an
d (iii) they
were unable to
deco
de the information containe
d in such representations. Assuming that lack of an un
derstan
ding of the purpose of such representations inhibite
d stu
dents鈥?meaningful learning,
we have
worke
d to a
ddress this 鈥渞epresentation problem鈥?explicitly in the context of a novel intro
ductory general chemistry curriculum: Chemistry, Life, the Universe, an
d Everything (CLUE). CLUE inclu
des a learning progression to help stu
dents master the relationships bet
ween molecular structure an
d bulk properties. T
wo metho
ds
were use
d to assess stu
dent learning: OrganicPa
d, a tablet-PC program that can recognize, recor
d, an
d gra
de stu
dent free-form naturalistic structure
dra
wings; an
d the Implicit Information from Le
wis Structures Instrument (IILSI), a vali
date
d survey that asks stu
dents to i
dentify the kin
ds of information they believe can be
de
duce
d from Le
wis structures. A comparison of t
wo statistically equivalent cohorts of stu
dents reveale
d that CLUE stu
dents sho
w marke
d improvements (effect size,
r = 0.6), over control stu
dents in their ability to construct structures. CLUE stu
dents
were also significantly better at
deco
ding the information that these structures contain. We present evi
dence that the improvements observe
d are
due to the
design an
d implementation of the specific learning progression rather than instructor effects.
Keywords:
d="authors" href="http://pubs.acs.org/action/doSearch?action=search&searchText=High+School%2FIntroductory+Chemistry&qsSearchArea=searchText">High School/Introductory Chemistry; d="authors" href="http://pubs.acs.org/action/doSearch?action=search&searchText=First%5C-Year+Undergraduate%2FGeneral&qsSearchArea=searchText">First-Year Undergraduate/General; d="authors" href="http://pubs.acs.org/action/doSearch?action=search&searchText=Second%5C-Year+Undergraduate&qsSearchArea=searchText">Second-Year Undergraduate; d="authors" href="http://pubs.acs.org/action/doSearch?action=search&searchText=Chemical+Education+Research&qsSearchArea=searchText">Chemical Education Research; d="authors" href="http://pubs.acs.org/action/doSearch?action=search&searchText=Learning+Theories&qsSearchArea=searchText">Learning Theories; d="authors" href="http://pubs.acs.org/action/doSearch?action=search&searchText=Lewis+Structures&qsSearchArea=searchText">Lewis Structures; d="authors" href="http://pubs.acs.org/action/doSearch?action=search&searchText=Covalent+Bonding&qsSearchArea=searchText">Covalent Bonding; d="authors" href="http://pubs.acs.org/action/doSearch?action=search&searchText=Molecular+Properties%2FStructure&qsSearchArea=searchText">Molecular Properties/Structure