Research: Science and Education edited by
Chemical Education Research
Diane M. Bunce The Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. 20064
College Chemistry and Piaget: An Analysis of Gender Difference, Cognitive Abilities, and Achievement Measures Seventeen Years Apart Ivan A. Shibley, Jr.* and Louis Milakofsky Department of Chemistry, Penn State Berks–Lehigh Valley College, Reading, PA 19610; *
[email protected] David S. Bender Department of Educational Psychology, Penn State Berks–Lehigh Valley College, Reading, PA 19610 Henry O. Patterson Department of Psychology, Penn State Berks–Lehigh Valley College, Reading, PA 19610
Piaget’s cognitive development theory has been used to describe learning in college courses and has served as a conceptual framework to partially explain why chemistry is such a difficult subject for many students. A number of studies exploring different facets of Piaget’s work as related to chemistry were published in the 1970s and 1980s (1–6) and several reviews of the applicability of Piaget’s theory to chemistry also appeared during that time (7–10). Contributors to the literature of Piaget’s relation to chemistry were substantially less in the 1990s (11–13). The final stage of Piaget’s developmental model is the ability to perform formal operations. Piaget originally theorized that students reach this level of cognitive development by age fifteen. But Piaget sensed that his studies were conducted on “a somewhat privileged population” and that a number of children older than fifteen had not yet reached the formal-operations stage (14). A body of research supports Piaget’s later assertion about the age of formal thinking: as many as 50% of college freshmen are still functioning at the concrete-operational stage, the stage immediately preceding formal operations in Piaget’s scheme (2, 8, 15). In the 1960s and 1970s a number of paper-and-pencil inventories were created to assess cognitive development in
Piagetian terms. Piagetian studies in the early 1970s centered on determining the students’ developmental stage (classification studies: ref 4). The research focus in this area for the past twenty years has concentrated on validation of paperand-pencil inventories, classroom applications of those inventories, and interventions that will help students develop more formal cognitive ability (16). A recent article that used the Inventory of Piaget’s Developmental Tasks (IPDT) to study the differences between students from different decades (17) provided the impetus for the current study. The IPDT has been found to be both valid and reliable (18). The current study addresses two questions using the IPDT: (1) Are introductory college chemistry students today different from those a generation ago in terms of Piagetian cognitive functioning, aptitude, and achievement; and (2) Are the gender differences in Piagetian cognitive functioning found in 1981 still evident today? Methodology The subjects who volunteered to be in the 1998 study (N = 87; 47 males and 30 females) and in the 1981 study (N = 64; 34 males; 30 females) were enrolled in an intro-
Table 1. Final Course Grades and SAT and IPDT Scores by Gender 1981 Evaluation Medium
Male Mean
Final grade in coursea
nab
SAT–verbal
424
1998 Female
SD
Mean
Male SD
F
SD
Mean
SD
F
2.24
1.11
2.51
1.29
1.06
0.04
407c
72.3
424c
80.5
0.41
c
nab 55.9
428
70.8
Female
Mean
SAT-–math
480
57.1
451
40.0
3.38
480
74.9
443c
86.0
3.62
IPDTd
63.0
4.5
59.4
5.6
8.36e
59.1
6.8
56.6
8.0
2.18
a
Grade scale is 0.0–4.0.
b
Not available.
c
Note that even though the Scholastic Assessment Test (formerly the Scholastic Aptitude Test) was recentered in 1995, the SAT results for the 1998 sample in Table 1 were recalculated to the non-recentered equivalent. The recentering established new norms to report students' scores although the content of the test did not change and the relative rankings of students remains the same. The reason for recentering the scores was the greater diversity of students taking the test today (over one million) versus the original sample of ten thousand. d
Inventory of Piaget's Developmental Tasks.
e
p < .005
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 80 No. 5 May 2003 • Journal of Chemical Education
569
Research: Science and Education
ductory chemistry course taken by students who are not in science or engineering programs. The course consisted of a two-period lecture and two-period lab each week for a fifteen-week semester. The chemistry placement exam and the prerequisites for the course were not changed between 1981 and 1998. The higher male兾female ratio in 1998 did not affect the data because gender analysis of the data was conducted wherever appropriate. In the absence of any data suggesting otherwise, the 1981 and 1998 groups were considered comparable. All participants were administered the IPDT within the first two weeks of the semester. The IPDT is a 72-item, untimed, multiple-choice, paper-and-pencil inventory with 18 subtests grouped into five problem areas representing different Piagetian tasks; it was developed by Hans Furth at the Center for Research in Thinking and Language and first published in 1970 (19). The five problem areas of the IPDT are classification, conservation, imagery, proportional reasoning, and relations. Students take about 45 minutes to complete the test and student scores reflect the number of items answered correctly. In adTable 2. Mean IPDT Scores for 1981 and 1998 Test Areaa
Subtest
Relations
1981b
1998c
15.47
14.77
Sequence
3.81
3.32
Seriation
3.90
3.47
Inferences
3.85
3.73
14.62
14.11
Levels
3.91
3.74
Perspective
3.66
3.87
Movement
3.50
3.40
Imagery
Conservation
13.98
12.05
Quantity
3.46
3.64
Weight
3.95
3.44
Volume
3.03
2.59
Distance
2.55
3.82
13.41
12.65
Matrix
3.80
2.69
Symbols
3.71
3.00
Classes
2.25
2.92
Inclusion
3.60
2.00
12.29
11.77
Rotation
2.97
2.40
Angles
3.37
3.38
Shadows
2.91
3.53
Probability
3.15
Classification
Proportional Reasoning
Totald
61.3
3.15 58.1
a The three subtest scores for conservation, classification, and proportional reasoning were summed to calculate a total score for each of these problem areas. In order to compare all five problem areas to each other, the total scores for relations and imagery were summed and then multiplied by 4/3 since these problem areas contained only three subtest areas. b c
N = 62.
N = 77.
d
Total is the sum of all subtest scores.
570
dition to scores on the IPDT, SAT (Scholastic Assessment Test) scores, and final course grades were collected for all subjects. Because norms for the SATs were recentered in the mid 1990s, scores for the 1998 students were adjusted for equivalent norms to the earlier sample. All statistical correlations were done using a Pearson product correlation coefficient, while means were compared using the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results A comparison of 1981 and 1998 chemistry students by gender on SAT and IPDT scores (Table 1) shows that the average scores for males for the verbal portion of the SAT were 17 points lower in 1998 but there was no change for the math test. For females, there was a slight decline in both the math and verbal scores. On the IPDT, there was a decline of nearly four items in the average performance of males and a decline of nearly three items for females. The statistically significant difference in the total performance of males and females on the IPDT in 1981 disappeared in the 1998 sample although male students averaged 2.5 items higher than females. There was no statistically significant difference in the final grades between the men and women in the chemistry course in the 1998 sample (F =1.060), although the average grades indicate a tendency for females to outperform males (Table 1). The totaled scores (Table 2) for the entire sample on the IPDT declined from a mean of 61.3 (SD = 5.3) in 1981 to a 1998 mean of 58.1 (SD = 7.33), an average decline of three items. Tables 3 and 4 show the results on the IPDT problem areas and subtests for the males and females for 1981 and 1998. The average performance declines in all problem areas for both genders from 1981 to 1998. The decline in the means is an average of 1 item or less with the exception of the conservation problem area where the point decline for males is 2.5. The decrease for females is 1.3 points, half of what the males experienced in the mean score decline. With respect to ranking the difficulty level of the problem areas for the students, relations and imagery problem areas remained as numbers one and two in highest performance both years. While conservation ranked third in difficulty in 1981, classification ranked third for both genders in 1998. In contrast to 1981 when the problem areas had the same difficulty ranking for both males and females, in 1998 conservation is the most difficult problem area for males and proportional reasoning remained the most difficult for females. While men and women differed in two problem areas (conservation and proportional reasoning) in 1991, a gender difference only exists in the imagery scale in 1998. However, there are new gender differences on the two subtests in imagery and one subtest in classification that did not exist in 1981. Gender differences on the subtests in proportional reasoning still exist but the pattern is a bit different and the distinctions are not as pronounced in 1981. Tables 5–7 show the intercorrelations of the SAT scores, IPDT scores, and final course grades for the 1998 sample. In examining the entire 1998 sample in Table 5, performance on the IPDT has a strong correlation with the math but not the verbal portion of the SAT. In the 1981 study, the IPDT
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 80 No. 5 May 2003 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
Research: Science and Education Table 3. Mean IPDT Problem Areas and Subtest Scores for Males and Females in 1981a Males b
Subtest
Problem Area Relations
Females
Mean
SD
Mean
SD
Fc
15.7
0.8
15.2
1.2
3.40
Sequence
3.9
0.3
3.7
0.7
3.85
Seriation
3.9
0.3
3.9
0.3
0.10
Inferences
3.9
0.2
3.8
0.6
0.95
14.9
1.2
14.3
2.1
2.44
Levels
4.0
0.0
3.8
0.9
2.30
Perspective
3.8
0.6
3.5
0.8
2.19
Movement
3.5
0.6
3.5
0.7
0.00
14.5
1.6
13.4
1.8
7.39d
Quantity
3.6
0.6
3.3
0.6
4.00d
Weight
4.0
0.0
3.9
0.3
2.35
Volume
3.4
0.9
2.6
1.3
8.59e
Imagery
Conservation
Distance
2.6
0.6
2.5
0.6
0.55
13.5
1.9
13.3
1.8
0.25
Matrix
3.8
0.4
3.8
0.4
0.06
Symbols
3.8
0.6
3.6
0.6
1.25
Classes
2.3
1.4
2.2
1.3
0.07
Inclusion
3.6
0.7
3.6
0.7
0.06
12.9
1.9
11.6
2.8
5.12f
Rotation
3.2
0.9
2.7
1.0
5.30f
Angles
3.7
0.5
3.0
1.2
10.23e
Shadows
3.0
0.7
2.8
1.0
0.85
Probability
3.1
1.3
3.2
0.9
0.14
Classification
Proportional Reasoning
Originally reported by Bender and Milakofsky (20); N(males) = 34 and N(females) = 30.
a
See footnote a in Table 2; cdf = 1.62; dp < .01; ep < .005; fp < .05
b
Table 4. Mean IPDT Problem Area and Subtest Scores for Males and Females in 1998 Problem Area
Subtest
Relations
Females SD
Meanb
SD
F
14.80
1.41
14.70
1.83
0.06
Sequence
3.83
0.48
3.57
0.77
3.56
Seriation
3.85
0.36
3.77
0.68
0.56
Inferences Imagery
3.42
0.96
3.07
0.75
1.88
14.50
2.08
13.40
2.40
4.59c
Levels
3.52
1.20
3.40
0.89
0.23
Perspective
3.77
0.47
3.43
0.97
4.22c
Movement
3.58
0.65
3.20
0.85
5.10c
12.00
2.44
12.10
1.81
0.66
3.25
0.73
3.43
0.50
1.46
Conservation Quantity Weight
3.63
0.98
3.93
0.25
2.83
Volume
2.65
1.19
2.50
1.31
0.26
Distance Classification
2.48
0.82
2.27
0.83
1.22
12.90
1.88
12.30
2.27
1.76
Matrix
3.90
0.31
3.83
0.46
0.52
Symbols
3.52
0.58
3.20
0.81
4.15c
Classes
2.06
1.31
1.90
1.27
0.29
Inclusion
3.42
0.85
3.33
1.21
0.13
Proportional Reasoning
a
Males Meana
12.20
2.56
11.10
2.99
2.93
Rotation
2.79
1.07
2.53
1.11
1.05
Angles
3.21
1.07
2.67
1.21
4.26c
Shadows
3.10
0.75
2.63
1.19
4.61c
Probability
3.08
1.35
3.27
1.05
0.40
N = 30; bN = 48; cp < .05
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 80 No. 5 May 2003 • Journal of Chemical Education
571
Research: Science and Education
was significantly related to both the math and verbal sections of the SAT, although the correlation was much higher with the math test. For the 1998 sample as a whole, the IPDT does not have a significant relationship with the final course grade in chemistry. Tables 6 and 7 show the intercorrelations by gender and reveal a pattern of relationships for the IPDT that is masked in Table 5. For females, course grades are significantly correlated with the IPDT, SAT–math, and SAT–verbal scores. This finding does not hold true for the males, however, where the only significant correlations are the SAT–math with the IPDT scores and course grades. To further examine possible underlying reasons for this gender difference, course achievement was related to each of the problem areas on the IPDT in Table 8. It would appear that the area of relations is a major factor affecting the performance of females in college chemistry. In fact, this is the only one of the problem areas on the IPDT that shows any relationship with class achievement for both genders. Discussion and Conclusion Piaget’s theory provides a conceptual lens to view possible reasons for the lack of student success in college chemistry courses. Research has demonstrated, for example, that both concrete and formal thinkers benefit from concrete, versus abstract, examples (9, 21). The use of model kits has been found to help students’ functioning at the highest level of formal operations (21). Since concrete examples seem to be the only way to teach chemistry to concrete thinkers (without first helping them to develop into formal thinkers) and since formal thinkers are able to perform better in a difficult subject when given concrete examples, the use of concrete examples seems essential in the teaching of chemistry. The current study was undertaken to compare students who took the same course seventeen (17) years apart. This comparison of chemistry student cognitive abilities in 1981 and 1998 suggests that today’s students are different in a number of ways and that gender differences still exist. SAT–verbal scores have declined overall and SAT–math scores have declined for females. Although total IPDT scores no longer show a significant gender difference, individual problem areas and subtests do show a difference—although the pattern of differences has mostly shifted away from conservation tasks to imagery tasks. While both SAT and IPDT total scores correlate significantly with course grade for females, only SAT– math correlates significantly with course grade for males. The finding that the significant difference in IPDT scores between men and women in 1981 disappeared in 1998 is most likely the result of male scores declining to a greater extent than the female scores. Future work is planned to identify specific test items on the IPDT that will predict success in an introductory chemistry course. The average IPDT total score for the 1998 study, 58.1, is slightly higher than the mean of 57.1 found in a comparable group of nonscience chemistry students in the study by Coleman and Gotch (17) that sampled students in the 1990s. Interestingly, their data also showed a decline in the average IPDT score from the 1980s for a similar group of students, though not to the same degree as in the present study. 572
College chemistry teachers who have taught for a number of years are intuitively aware that student cohorts change in a number of ways and that pedagogical techniques must be designed to best meet the needs of each group. The generational and gender differences revealed in this study suggest that chemistry teachers should be aware of the diversity in cognitive abilities in designing and implementing introductory chemistry courses and that diagnostic research needs to be conducted periodically to determine the relative strengths and weaknesses of student cohorts. The IPDT and the SAT appear to be useful tools for assessing cognitive functioning and predicting performance in introductory chemistry.
Table 5. Correlationa of SAT and IPDT Scores and Course Achievement, 1998 Evaluation
SAT–math
SAT–verbal
IPDT
Course
SAT–math
--
.32c
.45c
.27b
c
SAT–verbal
.32
--
.14
.21
IPDT
.45c
.14
--
.1 8
Course
.27b
.21
.18
--
a
One-tailed tests of significance.
b
p < .05
c
p < .01
Table 6. Correlation of Tests and Course Achievement for Females, 1998 Evaluation
SAT–math
SAT–verbal
IPDT
Course
SAT–math
--
.50b
.47b
.37a
.50
b
--
.29
.34a
.47
b
.29
--
.32a
.37
a
a
SAT–verbal IPDT Course
.34
.32
a
--
a
p < .05
b
p < .01
Table 7. Correlation of Tests and Course Achievement for Males, 1998 Evaluation
SAT–math
SAT–verbal
IPDT
Course
SAT–math
--
.23
.31a
.28a
SAT–verbal
.23
--
.08
.10
IPDT
.31a
.08
--
.09
Course
.28a
.10
.09
--
a
p < .05
Table 8. Correlation of IPDT Problem Areas to Course Achievement, 1998 Problem Area
Total
Males
Females
Relations
0.20a
-0.10
0.53b
Imagery
0.07
0.05
0.16
Conservation
0.11
0.02
0.27
Classification
0.16
0.13
0.24
Proportional Reasoning
0.14
0.15
0.17
a
p < .05
b
p < .001
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 80 No. 5 May 2003 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
Research: Science and Education
If the decline in cognitive developmental abilities as measured by the IPDT is truly representative of today’s college students, the reasons for such an historical pattern need to be examined. What are the experiences of youth during the 1990s that would result in such a finding for all of the problem areas? Video games and television may be easy targets, but whatever the cause, teachers need to work with students who are currently enrolled in the course and deal with the stage of cognitive development that the students present. A change in the pattern of cognitive abilities may imply that faculty may need to change their approaches to teaching. What would cause the disappearance of gender differences among men and women from 1981 to 1998 in the conversation problem area, but the emergence of differences in the problem areas of imagery and classification? The lack of a significant gender difference in the total IPDT score may not be a sign of progress if the data reflect a decline in the cognitive performance of males as opposed to an increase in the score of females. Further investigation is also warranted to explain the change in patterns of gender differences in the five problem areas. One of the best summaries of Piagetian theory as related to chemistry appeared in this Journal (7) and contained the following viewpoint: Piaget’s method of researching the ideas of young people is simply to spend time with these young people and to question them about certain physical phenomena. He then attempts to explain these ideas in terms of the structure of human knowledge. It would seem that the teaching and compiling of any course would be improved if the teacher of that course would spend time with his students, finding out what they understood about the concepts they were studying.
The paper-and-pencil test used in the current study can never replace the hard work of determining what students understand. The paper-and-pencil test can be a first step, though, in assessing cognitive abilities. The pedagogical climate in higher education is slowly changing from a focus on
the teacher to a focus on the learner. Although the change is subtle, the question “How can I help students learn?” is decidedly different question from “How can I teach better?” (22). The current study contains data that provide insight into the cognitive abilities of introductory chemistry students. The challenge now is to utilize this information to help facilitate learning. Literature Cited 1. Dunlop, D. L.; Fazio, F. Sch. Sci. Math 1977, 77, 21. 2. Williams, H.; Turner, C. W.; Debruil, L.; Fast, J.; Berestiansky, J. J. Chem. Educ. 1979, 56, 599. 3. Wulfsberg, G. J. Chem. Educ. 1983, 60, 725. 4. Gabel, D. L. View, Teach, Learn 2000, 55, 24. 5. Ward, C. R.; Herron, J. D. J. Res. Sci. Teach. 1980, 17, 387. 6. Thorton, M. C.; Fuller, R. G. J. Res. Sci. Teach. 1981, 18, 335. 7. Craig, B. S. J. Chem. Educ. 1972, 49, 807. 8. Chiappetta, E. L. Sci. Educ. 1976, 60, 253. 9. Herron, J. D. J. Chem. Educ. 1978, 55, 165. 10. Kavanaugh, R. D.; Moomaw, W. R. J. Chem. Educ. 1981, 58, 263. 11. Lythcott, J. J. Chem. Educ. 1990, 67, 248. 12. Libby, R. D. J. Chem. Educ. 2000, 72, 626. 13. Nurrenbern, S. C. J. Chem. Educ. 2001, 78, 1107. 14. Piaget, J. Hum. Dev. 1972, 15, 1. 15. Herron, J. D. J. Chem. Educ. 1975, 52, 146. 16. Lawson, A. E. In Handbook of Research on Science Teaching and Learning; Gabel, D. L., Ed.; Macmillan: New York, 1994; pp 131–176. 17. Coleman, S. L.; Gotch, A. J. J. Chem. Educ. 1998, 75, 206. 18. Patterson, H. O.; Milakofsky, L. Appl. Psych. Meas. 1980, 4, 341. 19. Furth, H. An Inventory of Piaget’s Developmental Task; Center for Research in Thinking and Language, Catholic University: Washington, DC, 1970. 20. Bender, D. S.; Milakofsky, L. J. Res. Sci. Teach. 1982, 19, 205. 21. Goodstein, M. P.; Howe, A. C. J. Chem. Educ. 1978, 55, 171. 22. Barr, R. B.; Tagg, J. Change 1995, 27, 12.
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 80 No. 5 May 2003 • Journal of Chemical Education
573
