Goals for lntroductory Chemistry Courses Tony Mitchell St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, MN 56301 Introductory chemistry courses present a n interesting challenge t o a chemistry department. They are the service courses t h e department offers as i t s contribution t o t h e college or university. There m u s t be a variety o f courses in order to meet the needs o f t h e students. The curriculum changes o f the 1960's resulted in an increased number o f introductory courses (1). F o r students, t h e introductory n course i s the first course thev take in their maior ~ l a of study or as a requirement for entrance i n t o a specific pro=am. Students a t Purdue have a choice of 10 one-semester courses, r a n g i n g f r o m a remedial course t o a n honors course. each course servine a s ~ e c i f i cstudent ~ o ~ u l a t i o n (2). I t was determined from a n examination o f selected colleee cataloes t h a t there are f o u r tvDes o f introductorv " c h i m i s t r y e k e s (3).(See Table 1.) While a wide variety o f courses, such as those offered a t Purdue Universitv (where 75% o f aU undereraduates take some type o f che&try course), should m e i t the needs o f the students. t h a t i s n o t alwavs t h e case (2). Each course serves a d i f f i r e n t population k t h different interests and needs. Students p l a n n i n g t o enter medical school often take a course different f r o m the one students seeking entrance i n t o nursing school would take. These courses also would be different from t h e course t h a t meets the general education reauirements. Also. it i s i m w r t a n t to note t h a t introductory courses are not solely for the preparation of c h e m i s t r v maiors. Often. t h e i n t r o d u c t o w chemistrv course i s t h e only chemist'ry course a s t u d e i t takes anb this w i l l have a n i m ~ a cot n t h e long-term education o f the student. The goals for courses taught in the 1990's m u s t reflect t h e overall goals o f the collegduniversity a n d chemical education. I f chemical education i s t o respond to the needs o f society (i.e., the need for a scientifically literate population, a n understanding of the nature of chemistry, etc.), there m u s t be a clearer understanding o f the current and future goals o f introductory chemistry courses.
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Table 2. Goals for lntroductory Chemistry Courses
A)
provide appropriate education for students of different abilities;
0)
consider the goals of the students and the reference of chemistry to those goals;
C)
prepare students for future chemistry courses;
D)
offer instruction that focuses on observation and description of common chemical reactions;
E)
have a reduced number of topics in order to give more attention to integration of ideas with applications;
F)
have a red~cednumber of topics (norder to give more attention to integration of ideas with appl cations:
G)
stress the interconnection between chemistry and other areas of the student's experience during school;
H)
stress the lnrermnnectnonbetween chem stry and other areas of tne student's experience after gradJatlon:
I)
give less emphasis to the routine application of rules and technical skills, recall of definitions, and memorizationof theoretical models;
J)
offer instr~ctionthat uses simple mcae s to describe stnct~rals mdarit es among compounds exh b m g s d a r reactivity;
K)
give more emphasis to the description of common chemical changes and use of simple structural models to explain chemical changes;
L)
introduce only those theoretical constructs and mathematical models needed to explain the chemical phenomena students obsetve In class or iaboratory;
M)
stress those habits, attitudes, and skills necessaryfor independent learning through informal education;
N)
reflect the emphasis on the development of intellectual skills through class assignments:
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Description o f t h e Study
A study was initiated in 1988 t o determine what were the perceived goals for introductory chemistry courses a n d if there were any similarities andlor differences between Table 1. lntroductory Chemistry Courses 1)
A one-year course for majors or pre-professionalstudents; this course is designed to meet the chemistry requirements for students desirins to become chemistw maiors or enter a professional schooior program.
2)
Aone-yearlone-term course for health care majors; this course is designed to meet the chemistry requirementsfor students desiring to become nurses or other selected health care professions.
3)
4)
Aone-yearlone-termcourse for liberal arts majors; this course is designed to meet the general education requirement in chemistry or science for students whose major is outside the area of science. A preparatorycourse; this course is designed to provide a background in chemistry for those students who may not have a good science background or wish to review chemistry before taking one of the other introductory courses listed above.
0) reflect the emphasis on the development of intellectual sMlls through laboratory activities;
P)
reflect the emphasis on the deve opment of ntel ectual sni Is thro~gheval~ationprocedures:
Q)
consider complex social issues as palt of the total curriculum and make provisions to involve persons with expeltise in the various disciplines that relate to those issues;
R)
develop intellectual skills that allow students to make rational decisions about complex issues;
S)
provide for the application of chemical problems to real world situations;
T)
help students develop lab skills useful in later classes;
U)
help students develop lab skills useful in later job settings; and
V)
help students develop the sense of time and project management useful in later settings.
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have been discussions concerning various specific courses and the needs of individuals taking such courses, such discussion has been directed toward Teach Teach Other Teach Other Category N introductory Undergraduate Graduate Assignments the course a t a given school and with little considerSchool PA\ ation for expanding the results to other school setchom~stn, P.-+ ~.. P -..-. . ..-.. , ~- -I -,. -~--s 1%) , C- -O-.I-I- ~- 1%) ,~ \.-, tines. to have been little effort c n ~ t r c .I%\ ~ ,,", .. There also amears .. made to summarize these various individual re13 PhDdegree 31 49 19 oorts. The closest thine to course summaries are the ;eports from the ~ ~ ~ b i v i s ofi oChemical n Educa13 MSdegree 16 58 I9 tion on general chemistry courses and the committee 5 on Health Education (4).However, these summaries 52 40 2 BS degree 23 tend to concentrate on the content of the courses 12 AAdegree 30 67 21 3 rather than what the goals for the courses are. While it is appropriate to determine the content for a total 100 course, without knowing what the goals for the H average 57 24 8 course are, it will be difficult to teach the course effectively. In the absence of stated general goals for introductory chemistry courses, a list of goals was developed. The typical introductory courses. The major goal of this study list for this study (Table 2) was developed from the goals was to help course planners develop courses that better for the CHEM Study (5)and CBA programs developed in meet the needs and interests of the students. the 1960's ( 6 )and the results of the NSTA's Search for ExIntroductory chemistry courses were selected from an cellence in Science Education (7). These programs were examination of selected college and university course catachosen because of the similarities between high school and logs and classified as one of four basic courses. (See Table introductory college courses (see 8-11), 1.) Courses were selected to include as many situations as A questionnaire was developed from the goals and dispossible that influence course design (urban schools, retributed to 357 college chemistry faculty members a t colsearch-oriented, commuter-based populations, etc.), the leges granting either an AA, a BS, an MS, or a PhD degree length of the course (one-semester or two-semesters), and (or equivalent) in chemistry. Participants were asked to inthe type of college (community colleges and colleges offerdicate if each identified goal was applicable for each of the ing a BS, MS, or PhD degree (or equivalent) in chemistry) identified courses (from the examination of courses, it was found that there were four basic courses but that two of the (3).Asearch of current literature showed that, while there courses, the health care and liberal arts courses, were taught on two different schedTable 4. Study Results ules, the one-year sequence and the one-semester sequence).onehundred two questionGoal Majors One-Year One-Year One-Term One-Term Preparatory naireswere returned. A description of the Course Health Care Liberal Arts Health Care Liberal Arts Course (%) participants is given in Table (two of the (%) Course (%) Course (%) Course (%) Course (%) participants did not indicate the type of 69 71 77 72 80 88 school and are not included in the summary). The return rate was typical for a survey of this nature. The results of the study are given in Table 4. An examination of the results shows that individuals in similar situations tend to give similar answers. This enables some conclusions to be drawn from the results of the study Table 3. Description of Study Population
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Discussion of Results
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81
75
Journal of Chemical Education
78
73
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It can be seen that most participants in the study favored the development of intellectual P, R, and V). It also skills (goalsA, B, M, N, 0, is apparent that the type of course had a bearing on the applicability of the identified goal. For example, consider goal A as applied to each of the six courses. Only 69% of the participants felt that this was applicable for the majors course while 88% felt that such a goal was applicable for a preparatory course. This should be an expected result because the role of the preparatory course is to prepare students for further studv. The results. however. do not reflect differenlesbetween &dents a11 readv takine the majors course. These results suggest t h 2 differences between students is not a factor to consider when planning a majors type course. There is a similar distinction between the results for eoals N and 0. Over 90% of the participants lfelt that goal N was applicable for all six courses while 90% of the
participants felt that goal 0 was applicable only to the majors course and the one-year health care course. This difference may be based on the length ofthe course. Typically, these courses will be two semesters in length and have time for laboratory activities while the other four courses would not have a laboratory component. The difference between courses also is evident in two other areas, preparation for future study of chemistry (goals C, D, F, J, K, L, T, and U) and understanding chemistry as a day-to-day activity (goals E, G, H, I, Q, and S). In the first area (future studv). 90% of the oarticioants felt that goals rmeh as C, T, ar;dU applied ody to the majors course. This is exoected because those mals reflect the emphasis of the majors course. What is i&eresting to note is that only 32%of the participants in the study felt that goal L applied to the majors course. While there have been arguments in the literature suggesting that the amount of material presented be limited for a better understanding, the results of this study suggest that the participants hold the view that all of the material in the textbook should be covered in order for students to be prepared for future chemistry study A second viewpoint is that many topics, such as nuclear fission and fusion, cannot be presented in the classroom discussion or done in the laboratory. This places the instructor in a rather awkward position of trying to balance the need for understanding chemistry on a day-to-day basis with the need for preparing students for future study. This conflict may be further aggravated by the nature of the textbook. The area where there seemed to be the greatest deviation from~- the literature is in the area of chemistry as a ~-~ day-to-day activity. Only goal S received major consideration from the uarticiuants in this studv. A total of 84% of the participant's felt &at goals G and applicable to the liberal arts courses but not for the health care or majors courses. This outcome suggests that more attention is eiven to the relationshio between chemistrv and societv in the liheral arts courses than in the other courses. However, the limited aoolicabilitv .. . ~- v e nto courses fw "chemistry users", such as medical technicians, nurses, and doctors, needs to be examined in lizht of the chemistry requireThis same relatickhip bements for those tween courses also was evident in the results for goal Q, one of the lowest rated goals. These results suggest that while appropriate to prepare students to use chemistry in real world situations (goal S), it is not appropriate for faculty members of differing disciplines to work together. There is the likelihood that faculty members responded in this manner because many colleges and universities are not set up to encourage interdisciplinary activities at the introductory level. At the upper level (junior and senior), such activities could and do take place. However, the impact of this would be rather limited if there is no encouragement for students to undertake such interdisciplinary activities. One way for students td see the relationship between chemistrv and other areas would be for instructors in introdnctoj courses to have speakers from outside chemistrv oresent t a k s dealing with the a~ulicationof their culGe& research to chemis&y. This could be either as ~
were
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part of the instruction phase of the course or through seminars for beginning students that show how information presented in the class is used in other situations. Summary It can be concluded that there are differences between the types of iutroducto+y courses identified in this study. The results also show that the imoortance olaced on certain goals match neither the historical goais of chemical education nor perhaps the needs of the students in those courses. It also may be concluded that there is little balance between the study for future chemistry, intellectual development, and an understanding of the day-to-day usage of chemistry in the various introductory courses. It also appears that the results of the survey could be considered in terms ofhow chemistry, both in the lecture and laboratory, is taught. While goals dealing with the day-to-day usage of chemistry are more emphasized in courses for nonscience majors, such goals receive apparently little emphasis in courses for chemistry majors and other science-based specialities. In courses for chemistry majors and other areas, goals related t o future study received a greater emphasis. This raises the question of when those students will obtain information about the usage of the material they are studying. It is possible that differences between the applicability of goals and differences between courses may be related to the size of the school and the mission of the school. Neither of these factors was considered in this paper. Though the amount of material available to be taught continues to increase, the time to teach the material does not. This "constant volume" problem is not a new one (12). Because anv eiven colleee Dropram has a fixed number of hours allot&i for each &;a 07 study, increasing the content without adding more courses can prove to be difficult. This problemsuggests that we need to determine what the ootimal mix of studv for future chemistrv. intellectual development, and an understanding of theday-to-day usage of chemistnr is. The changes in chemistry over the past 30 years must be reflected in what our introductonr courses teach. These in such a way that same courses also must be will enable students to deal with changes in the next 30 years. Understanding what the goals of a course are can help to deal with such changes. Literature Cited I. Ryan, M. A. K PhDTheais, Uniwrsity ofwmilua, 1977.
2. 6odner.G. J Chem Edue 1988,65,212. 3. Mitchell, A. PhD Dimertation, University ofIowa, 1990.
4. Treblow, M.:Daly, J. M.: Sarquis, J. L. J. C k m . Edur 1984.61, 620: Daly, J. M.;
Sarguis, J. L. J. C k m . Educ 1987.€4.699. 3. Ramsey,GA. A Reoaw ofthe Research and Litemturn on fk C h i e e l Education Mohriois Stud2 Pmjeet, Reaarch h a w Series - Science P w 4, Ohio State Uniuersitv (ED 0375921.1970. 6. Osbom, G . ~ e h o oScr. l Moth. lS63.69.53. 7. Pencik, J. E.; Wn*,J. Focvs on E ~ d ~ n C B C k m i sNSTA: t ~ ; Washington, D C, 1984, V01. 3. no. 2. 8. MiteheU,T. J Chrm Edue. 1989,66.562:Mitehell, T J. C k m . Educ 1991.68,116. 9. Niedzielski,R.J.; Walmsley, F J C k m . Educ 198Z,59,149. 10. Vager, R E. Sti. %eh. 1986.53 (11,145. 11. Kirachner. S. Peprpwentedatthe%*Ye~ College Chemis+aCo&rena. Arapah- Community College, Littleton, Colorado. 3 Aptil1987. 12. Willeford, B. R., JI; Clapp, L. B. J C k m . Educ 1982,38,251.
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