Lower Level Freshman Chemistry: How to Choose the Audience? There is considerable interest in many chemistry departments as to how to choose the population for courses designed for underpriviledged or underprepared students. This Journal has recently published a number of reports on this matter and related p r ~ b l e m s . 'A~ very recent paper by Pickering4 describes an introductory course a t Columbia which ran parallel with the regular section of freshman chemistry. Students for this course were chosen on the basis of Math SAT scores and certain conclusions were reached. I t is the purpose of the present paper t o report on a similar course a t the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, for which the audience was chosen in a substantially different manner and for which the conclusions are somewhat d i f f ~ e n t . ~ Of a class of 1200 freshman chemists, approximately 175 were placed in an accelerated program on the basis of overall high school background. The remaining students were placed in 6 or 7 large sections using the standard popular text by Masterton and Slowinski "Chemical Principles."After the first hour exam, the students scoring the lowest 10% were advised of a lower level course which began about ?$ of the way through the semester. Those students with very low 1st hour exam scores were allowed to drop (on their option) the three hour standard course and pick up the two hour, lower level course. They retained the laboratory which has separate credit. The lower level course used a text by Peters ''Introduction to Chemical Principles." The course involved considerable drill especially on mathematical concepts. The drill quizzes were treated as diagnostic only (this kept morale high); the finaleram determined the grade. After successful completion of the course, the student could, if he wished, re-enter the normal sections. SAT scores were not used t o select the audience because our studiess show little correlation between SAT scores in any category and grades in freshman chemistry. As the ouernge SAT score increases, however, we find the ooerage grade in freshman chemistry also increases. The students who enrolled in the lower level course a t their option did indeed have lower average SATS than the class as a whole-the average verbal SAT was 20 points lower and the average math SAT was 60 points lower. This indicates that the Math score would be a better indicator as to which student was likely to have trouble, if i t were not for the poor statistical correlation between math SATS and grades. The lower level course was not a "slide": the final made distribution was A(15). B(29). C(19). D(10). F(11). The student evaluations were high nll hut a handful thought rhe mune v q uonhuhile. 'Thirty-nine of the qtudents went inw the rewlar . was rlrsrlv section the next serwswr; themade distrihut:m ofthis p o u p was A , ) , , R 9). Ctl&. 1)lli). F ~ ITheaverage~wde n "C". Since everyone of these student j was hendrd for an nlmost eertaln ' F rhc fir,! .;crne*csr.we tee1 that t he c o w s ? ua.; justified and intend to include i t again in our curriculum. We feel that the strong points of our approach are (1) The student decides for himself whether he can make i t by attempting the regular course. 12) n e t o the lower level course. little credit is last: thus the first semester record is not adversely . . When d r o..~ ~ i hack affected. (3) Morale is kept high in the lower course by giving the student lots of graded, hut not counted, diagnostic drill. Thus the student is given a chance to learn the material without heing punished for not knowing it in the first place. (4) The underpriviledged or underprepared student thus has the opportunity to (a) pick up the necessary background before entering the usual pre-professional sequence chemistry schedule or (b) decide that chemistry is not far him without the threat of an almost certain failure his first semester. We definitely feel that the course is worth the effort! ~
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'Kotnik, J., J. CHEM. EDUC., 51,165 (1974). ZMeckstroth, W. H., J. CHEM. EDUC., 51,329 (1974). 3Wartell, M. A,, J. CHEM. EDUC., 51,116 (1974). University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. 27514
418 / Journal of Chemical Education
'Pickering, M., J. CHEM. EDUC.,52,512 (1975). 5Pedersen, L., Edue. and Pysc. Measur., 35,509 (1975).
Lee Pedersen
