Chemical Education Today
Reports from Other Journals
A View of the Science Education Research Literature by William R. Robinson One of our jobs as chemistry instructors is helping our students to develop appropriate ideas about the microscopic world of atoms and molecules and to use these ideas to explain the behavior of matter. In many cases getting our students to work at the (to us) simple level of Dalton’s atomic theory is difficult. In fact, many of us believe that a large fraction of students in our introductory courses have only just started to understand the microscopic behavior of matter, and there is a huge body of research indicating that we are correct in this belief. Some of us use drawings, models, or a variety of different types of molecular dynamics simulators to try to model this invisible side of chemistry. Is it worth the time and effort? A recent research report, “The Effects a large fraction of of Computer Animation on the Particulate Mental students in our Models of College Chemisintroductory courses try Students” by Vickie Williamson and Michael have only just started Abraham, suggests that to understand the animations may be. The report is published in the microscopic behavior Journal of Research in Sciof matter ence Teaching 1995, 32, 521–534. Williamson and Abraham worked with three groups of students in a university general chemistry class: a control group taught using the blackboard and static transparencies and two treatment groups, one that also viewed a presentation of computer animations of particulate behavior as a visual aid in lectures, and a second group that also viewed the animations in lecture and as an assigned activity during a discussion session. The three groups were determined to be equivalent before the start of the experiment. Following the experiment no differences in attitude towards instruction in the course were detected; in other words, the students in the treatment sections felt neither special nor “picked on”. The animations were used with a unit on the properties of gases, liquids, and solids and with a unit on chemical reactions. Each unit was approximately two weeks (four lectures) in length and the animations constituted about five percent of the lecture time. Following each unit each student’s conceptual understanding was determined using a standard measure, the Particulate Nature of Matter Evaluation Test (PNMET). Exam scores were also used in the evaluation. It was found that …observations suggest students who viewed the that animations may animated sequences depicting particulate be- increase conceptual havior exhibited a sigunderstanding… nificant increase in their level of conceptual understanding of the behavior of matter at the molecular level, as determined by the PNMET, compared to stu-
16
dents in the control section. However, the improvement did not extend to algorithmic (rote, number-crunching) exercises on the course exams. Interestingly, more did not seem to be better in this case: both treatment groups performed equivalently. Students in both groups viewing the animations were found to have fewer misconceptions regarding properties of gases, liquids, and solids and reaction chemistry, the two units covered in the
…an interesting finding that suggests students can pass traditional chemistry courses with little understanding of the microscopic world. study. It was also found that these students held a more particulate view of matter. These observations suggest that animations may increase conceptual understanding by prompting or providing mental models of the microscopic phenomena. That the improvement did not extend to traditional algorithmic (rote, number-crunching) exercises on the course exams is an interesting finding. It suggests students can pass traditional chemistry courses with little understanding of the microscopic world. William R. Robinson is in the Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907;
[email protected].
Advertising in This Issue The companies listed below show their interest in chemical education by their presence as advertisers. This advertising brings you information about new books, new and established laboratory equipment, and apparatus and instruments for both teaching and research. Get acquainted with the advertisers in your Journal. Send for their catalogs and literature or use the postage-paid Readers’ Inquiry Card found on the insert card in this issue. When contacting advertisers, be sure to mention that you saw their advertisement in the Journal of Chemical Education.
Index to Advertisers in This Issue Inquiry No.
Advertiser
10
Bio-Rad, Inc.
12
JCE: Software
8 1–5
27 21
Omega Engineering
IFC
Parr
7
Perkin Elmer Science Kit
Advertising Representative
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 74 No. 1 January 1997
OBC
Laser Science, Inc.
9 11
Page No.
McNeill Group, Inc. 301 Oxford Valley Road, Suite 803B Yardley, PA 19067 Phone: 215/321-9662 or 800/275-5084
11 9 15
