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Through Looking Glass: Surveying
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Undergraduate he 1998 National Science Foundation (NSF) report Curricular Developments in the Analytical Sciences has been an important “wakeup call” for change. The report—which grew out of discussions in two NSF-sponsored workshops attended by 56 leading educators, researchers, and managers from academe, government, and industry—calls for major reforms in the U.S. analytical chemistry curriculum. It also issues a series of recommendations, including a reexamination of course content and the way information is delivered to students and a new emphasis on problem-based learning (PBL) (1, 2). During the NSF-sponsored workshops, it became clear that data on the traditional undergraduate analytical chemistry sequence are very limited. A recent study provides some useful information on the topics taught in instrumental analysis courses and how these curricula have changed over the past 20 years (3). However, there appears to be no published study on the introductory undergraduate quantitative analysis (QA) course. Because effective reform is predicated on the demonstration of meaningful change, this article presents the results of the first study of QA courses. This study is a “snapshot” in time, investigating what is currently taught in QA courses, who the teaching faculty are and under what constraints they teach, and how interested faculty are in the recent analytical chemistry curricular reform efforts.
A first-ever sur -
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vey of analytical chemistry faculty finds that curric ular change is occurring, but that some re -
sponses differCollecting the data In each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, a set of 4–6 institutions, representing a mix of public and private fouryear colleges and graduate research universities, was identified using Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges (4). The Web was then used to identify whether or not QA was offered at each institution. Of the 252 schools initially identified, 10% did not appear to offer a QA course as part of their undergraduate chemistry curriculum. Next, each institution’s website was searched to identify the
Patricia Ann Mabrouk Northeastern University M A Y 1 , 2 0 0 2 / A N A LY T I C A L C H E M I S T R Y
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name(s) of the faculty teaching the QA course. Unfortunately, it was not possible to ascertain the instructor’s identity in a significant number of cases. In the end, 153 faculty College representing 132 different colleges and universities in 45 states and the District of Columbia were contacted by mail and invited to participate in the study. Appendix A (available as Supporting Information at http://pubs.acs.org/ac) contains a list of the colleges and universities contacted. All faculty were mailed a letter of invitation describing the study, a copy of the paper-based survey, and a preaddressed stamped envelope for returning the completed study. The survey (Appendix B, available as Supporting Information at http://pubs.acs.org/ac) included 40 multiple choice questions aimed at identifying the general characteristics of the teaching faculty and the QA lecture course, 39 opinion questions (using a standard fixed-format Likert scale) probing faculty views of PBL, and 4 narrative questions that further explored faculty views of PBL and the QA course. Faculty were contacted in two phases: The first involved 88 faculty during September and October 2000, and the second reached 65 faculty in November and December 2000. Everyone was asked to complete the survey within two 2 3 weeks. The survey was4changed slightly between >4 phases one and two to include several questions pertaining to faculty Number of faculty who teach QA development. These questions are identified with an asterisk in Appendix B. Ultimately, 62 faculty representing 60 academic institutions and 35 states and the District of ColumAverage-size bia returned completed surveys. lab section Fixed-format data from sections 1 and 2 of the survey 50 This study was observational. Respondents self-selected, and as a result their responses may not fully reflect the opinions of the QA teaching community as a whole. By design, survey responses were collected in a manner that allowed respondents to remain anonymous. Consequently, it was not possible to directly investigate the issue of nonresponse bias. However, a comparison of the gender and area of research specialization for the faculty originally contacted and for those who responded suggests that this was not a problem. Gender and research areas can be easily obtained by inspecting college and university webpages, and no significant difference was observed between the original contact group and the respondent cohort. Nevertheless, because these characteristics may not be sensitive to all possible forms of non10–20 20–30 30–50 >50caution in generalizing the reresponse bias, I recommend Average-size lecture section sults of this study beyond the respondents.
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0 10 years of teaching experience were found to be significantly more likely to teach complexometric titrations (2 = 8.1; df = 3) and other electrochemical methods (2 = 7.8; df = 3). Assistant professors are more likely to include
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Wet chemistry faces off with instrumental analysis
Although faculty were not surveyed concerning specific laboratory experiments, they were queried on the types of samples—Thorn–Smith analyzed and real—the students analyzed in the QA laboratory. The survey found that 69% of faculty use Thorn–Smith analyzed samples in one or more laboratory experiments, while 42% use them in more than 50% of the laboratory experiments in their QA course. This suggests a strong emphasis on developing good laboratory technique and on helping students appreciate the significance of accuracy and precision when making meaningful measurements. Senior faculty were significantly more likely to use Thorn–Smith analyzed samples (2 = 63.8; df = 8). In addition, 84% of all faculty said that they use real samples in one or more laboratory experiments, and 47% use real samples in more than half of their laboratory experiments. The majority (69%) use some form of a group laboratory project in the course.
Faculty attitudes and awareness Because the NSF report on curricular reform advocated for a greater involvement of industry in analytical chemical education, faculty were queried concerning their receptivity toward this issue. Most faculty (45%) agree that industry should be more involved, 48% of the respondents are neutral on this issue, and only 7% feel that industry should not be more involved in the education of analytical scientists. Respondent faculty at public institutions were significantly more receptive toward the participation of industry in analytical education (2 = 16.5; df = 4). Faculty were asked a series of questions to gauge their awareness of the recent NSF-sponsored report on curricular reform in the analytical sciences and the subsequent curricular reform symposia and workshops. The majority (66%) indicated that they had not read the report, probably reflecting, in part, the fact that the report had been mailed primarily to department chairs. Nonetheless, it should be noted that the report was summarized in the Journal of Chemical Education (2), the findings were communicated at several subsequent analytical conferences, including Pittcon, and 28% of the respondents indicated that they had attended one or more of the recent PBL symposia and workshop activities. Because a constructivist approach was taken in gauging faculty awareness of PBL, no effort was made to define the term. Respondents were asked to indicate which of six choices—lecturing, working out problems, facilitating discussion, controlling/orchestrating student discussion, clarifying misconceptions, and wrapping-up/summarizing findings—best defined their view of the roles of the instructor in PBL. According to the respondents, the principal roles of the faculty member in PBL are clarifying student misconceptions (86%) and facilitating student discussion (71%). Wrapping up (48%), lecturing (46%), orchestrating student discussion (45%), and working out problems (38%) were generally regarded as less important roles. Interestingly, whether or not faculty use PBL did not influence respondent perceptions of the role of faculty. These findings suggest that the respondent QA faculty are clearly aware of this methodology as it is currently practiced, whether or not they use it in their own courses.
A significant number of the QA faculty (44%) indicated that they currently use PBL in their classrooms. No statistically significant correlations were observed between those who use PBL and almost all of the variables we investigated except whether or not faculty regularly read the Journal of Chemical Education. Faculty who use PBL were significantly more likely to read that journal (2 = 4.79; df = 1). Although a significant number of QA faculty do use PBL, the remainder appear to be largely undecided as to its value in instruction. In fact, when asked whether PBL is simply an educational fad, 45% of the respondents indicated that they were neutral on this issue. To gain insight into the concerns that faculty have regarding PBL, faculty who do not currently use the approach were asked to identify the stumbling blocks to their adoption of this teaching methodology. They cited the amount of time needed to adapt to PBL (51%), a need for evidence supporting the efficacy of PBL (37%), a lack of suitable teaching materials (25%), and the belief that PBL requires more preparation (59%). This suggests that the availability of time to pursue instructional efforts might be an important issue. Indeed, this concern was correlated with perceptions of their roles in PBL instruction. Faculty who felt that they do not have time to adapt to PBL were significantly more likely (2 = 12.8; df = 4) to believe that their role in the approach involves working out problems. In addition, faculty who felt that PBL required more preparation were more likely to believe that lecturing would be part of their role (2 = 7.7; df = 3). Because PBL inherently involves students working in groups, attitudes toward cooperative group work were also assessed. Generally, the respondent faculty believe (64%) that student achievement is enhanced by cooperative learning activities. Respondent faculty view the most significant benefit of group work to be the development of good communications skills (73%). To a lesser extent, respondents feel that students have fun (56%), are energized and excited (49%), learn good problem-solving skills (33%), and become critical thinkers (31%) through using this
Table 1. The QA curriculum. Topic Spectroscopy (UV–vis) Acid–base titrations Statistics Complexometric titrations Redox chemistry Gravimetry Analytical method Separations (plate and rate theory) GC Atomic absorption Other electrochemical methods (e.g., ion-selective electrodes, potentiometry) HPLC Other spectroscopy (e.g., fluorescence) Quality assurance/quality control Cyclic voltammetry Inductively coupled plasma methods MS CE
Percentage offaculty teaching topic 98 97 94 87 87 80 78 58 58 57 51 45 32 25 20 14 14 13
method. The principal disadvantages of group work appear to be that poor students can slide through by doing little work (70%) and grading issues (49%). Other concerns include difficulties related to group size and content, such as weak students getting lost (39%) and course content being sacrificed (26%). Given the complexity of the issues involved, it is not surprising that the surveyed faculty felt somewhat conflicted regarding this approach. Nearly half (47%) of the respondents said that the advantages do indeed outweigh the disadvantages. However, a significant number of faculty (31%) were neutral in their response to this question. Not surprisingly, those who use group projects had very different perceptions of the advantages of group work than the respondent faculty as a whole. Faculty who use group projects feel much more strongly that students become critical thinkers (2 = 6.8; df = 1) and benefit by learning good problem-solving skills (2 = 4.1; df = 1). No statistically significant differences were observed in faculty perceptions of the disadvantages of group work.
Teaching style Striking gender differences were observed in respondent views concerning teaching style and pedagogy. Female faculty felt strongly that retention was enhanced by connecting concepts to applications (2 = 11.7; df = 3) and that it is important to adapt their teaching styles to students’ varied needs (2 = 9.6; df = 4). They also disagreed far more than the men with the statement: Women and minorities are more likely to enter or stay in a science curriculum when the environment is highly competitive and when students work individually rather than in groups (2 = 11.1; df = 3). Women also felt more strongly than men that courses should place greater value on communications skills (2 = 10.0; df = 3) and that more opportunities are needed for student–professor feedback and interaction (2 = 10.3; df = 4).
The narrative record Overall, the narrative data supported the principal findings derived from the quantitative data. There is strong concern that the QA faculty maintain balance in terms of teaching the fundamentals, such as equilibria chemistry, rather than analytical instrumentation, or “button-pushing”. It was also found that the emphasis on teaching equilibria is imposed externally through standardized preprofessional examinations, such as those for medical and graduate schools, by the general chemistry curriculum and faculty in other chemical disciplines. Finally, faculty believe that to adopt PBL methodology, they need evidence of its efficacy and must have resources such as time, examples, money, personnel, and assistance to assess student performance.
nomena, good lab techniques, and problem-solving skills. Although they value hands-on experience with modern analytical instrumentation, the respondents expressed concern that their students understand the science behind the instrument lest they become mere “button-pushers”. Nearly half of the faculty currently uses PBL in their teaching. Those who do not use the approach appear to be open to change but have various concerns that they would like to see addressed before they consider adopting this teaching methodology in their classrooms. Clearly, more information and resources are needed that relate to the long-term adoption of newer teaching methodologies, such as PBL. Several correlations were uncovered in this study that suggest that differences among the QA faculty color what they teach and how they teach QA. Gender, academic rank, and years of teaching experience were all found to be important variables. Given the significant demographic changes that are even now transforming the professorate and the student body, it is important to recognize and understand these differences. It is hoped that this study will induce other interested shareholders to initiate and participate in the regular conduct of national QA studies and other analytical chemistry courses so that longitudinal trends can be identified and understood. Such studies can be key factors enabling analytical chemical educators to meet the needs of their students and establish meaningful benchmarks for assessment. It also guarantees that future academic leaders make well-informed decisions affecting analytical chemical education. I would like to thank the many analytical teaching faculty who took the time to complete the survey for their partnership in this study, the National Science Foundation (MCB-9600847) for support, Frank Settle (Washington & Lee University) and Tom Wenzel (Bates College) for their insightful comments and suggestions regarding the form and content of the survey tool, and Anne Sherren (North Central College) and Janet Bond Robinson (University of Kansas) for their thoughtful critique of this manuscript. This study was examined by the Northeastern University Human Subjects Research Review Committee (HSRRC #00-09-07) and approved as exempt, category 2, on September 22, 2000.
Patricia Ann Mabrouk is an associate professor at Northeastern University. Address all correspondence to Mabrouk at the Dept. of Chemistry, Northeastern University, Boston, Mass., 02115 (
[email protected]).
References (1) (2) (3) (4)
What does it mean? This study provides evidence that substantive changes are taking place in the QA course, particularly with respect to what is taught and how it is taught. As a group, the respondent faculty feel strongly that QA provides an important service to chemistry majors by teaching them the basics, such as equilibria phe-
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(5) (6) (7) (8) (9)
Kuwana, T. Curricular Developments in the Analytical Sciences; National Science Foundation: Washington, DC, 1998. Mabrouk, P. A. J. Chem. Educ. 1998,75, 527–530. Girard, J. E.; Diamant, C. T. J. Chem. Educ. 2000,77, 646–648. Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges, 19th ed.; Barron’s: Hauppauge, NY, 1992. Schneider, A. Chron. High. Educ. 2000,46, A12. Murray, R. W. Anal. Chem. 1994,66, 682 A. Freiser, H. Anal. Chem. 1995,67, 164 A. Hughes, K. D. Anal. Chem. 1993,65, 883 A–889 A. Christian, G. D. Anal. Chem. 1995,67, 532 A–538 A.
