Students' Understanding of Bonding and Bonding Models Across the Undergraduate Chemistry Curriculum: A Cross-Sectional Analysis

本项目旨在为改善本科化学教育提供证据基础，以留住和更好地培养STEM毕业生，从而为国家利益服务。特别是，研究小组打算推进本科化学学生如何在本科化学课程中发展与键合模型相关的想法的知识。这项工作很重要，因为理解化学键——原子和分子之间的相互作用是如何以及为什么形成的——是解决化学问题和发现可以满足社会需求的新材料的核心。在这个项目中，研究人员将对大学化学专业的学生进行问题解决访谈，要求学生利用他们对键合模型的知识来预测和解释化学行为。有关学生从入门课程到更高级课程的知识如何发展的研究结果将为实践提供信息，通过这些实践，教师可以支持与联系模型相关的更深入、更可转移的知识。通过确定改善学生对键合模型学习的条件，该项目将支持从美国院校毕业的本科化学学生的成功和准备。这个项目的目标是描述大学化学学生如何在越来越高级的课程背景下使用键合模型的知识来预测和解释化学现象。本项目的研究将涉及化学学生概念性和认识性知识资源的发展（即关于如何在科学探究中开发、评估和改进模型的想法）。为了实现这一目标，一般、有机和无机化学专业的学生将接受基于现象的开放式问题的采访，这些问题要求学生使用键合模型进行推断，并批评假设的学生反应。基于协调类理论的分析将有助于我们了解学生的知识资源被激活的情境，以及学生关于联系模式的概念知识和认知知识之间的相互作用。这种检查学生推理的横断面方法将能够识别从新手到专家般的关于结合模型的推理的可能轨迹，并将提供关于课程在支持规范科学推理发展中的作用的见解。研究结果将发表在相关学术期刊上，并在地区和国家STEM教育会议上发表。NSF IUSE: EDU项目支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过参与学生学习轨道，该计划支持有前途的实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project aims to serve the national interest by providing an evidence base for improving undergraduate chemistry education in order to retain and better prepare STEM graduates. In particular, the research team intends to advance knowledge of how undergraduate chemistry students’ ideas related to bonding models develop across undergraduate chemistry courses. This work is important because understanding chemical bonding -- how and why interactions between atoms and molecules form -- is central to solving chemical problems and discovering new materials that can address societal needs. In this project, researchers will conduct problem solving interviews with college chemistry students in which the students are asked to use their knowledge of bonding models to predict and explain chemical behavior. Findings related to how students’ knowledge develops as they progress from introductory to more advanced courses will inform practices through which instructors may support deeper and more transferable knowledge related to bonding models. By identifying conditions under which improved student learning about bonding models occurs, the project will support the success and preparedness of undergraduate chemistry students graduating from U.S. institutions.The goal of this project is to characterize the ways in which college chemistry students use knowledge about bonding models to predict and explain chemical phenomena within increasingly advanced course contexts. The studies in this project will address chemistry students’ development of both conceptual and epistemic knowledge resources (i.e. ideas about how models are developed, evaluated, and refined in scientific inquiry). To accomplish this, students enrolled in general, organic and inorganic chemistry will be interviewed using phenomena-based, open-ended questions which ask students to make inferences using bonding models and critique hypothetical student responses. Analyses informed by coordination class theory will give insight as to the contexts in which students knowledge resources are activated and the interplay between students’ conceptual and epistemic knowledge about bonding models. This cross-sectional approach to examining students’ reasoning will enable identification of possible trajectories from novice to expert-like reasoning about bonding models and will provide insight as to the role of the curriculum in supporting the development of normative scientific reasoning. The results will be published in relevant scholarly journals and presented at regional and national STEM education conferences. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.