Miles Pickering
Columbia University New Yort, New York 10027
Helping the High Risk Freshman Chemist
It is increasingly important for chemistry curricula to have some way of helping the student who is going to do poorly in freshman chemistry. Before we can help such high risk students in freshman chemistry, we must identify them. It is essential that the finding method chosen use "cheap," readily available data, and that i t happen a t the beginning of the student's chemistry experience, before he is in too deep to he helped. This paper will descrihe a method of identifying those students based on SAT scores, and also descrihe an experimental course a t Columbia used successfully to ameliorate the performance of these students. Identificationof HighRisk Students
Chemistry grades and math scholastic aptitude test scores were obtained for Columhia College students entering in the fall of 1972. These were sorted into categories of A, B, C, and D students, and for each category the average SAT score was computed and the range determined. A plot of these scores is displayed in the figure. It is obvious from the figure that there is a strong positive correlation between average SAT scores and chemistry grades. The relationship is almost a linear one, with the sole exception of the C students, to be discussed below. There is also a parallel relationship between the lower SAT of each grade category and the grade. Thus nobody with math SAT lower than 620 received an A, with math SAT lower than 530 received a B, etc. It is interesting to note that since the average math SAT for the whole country is in the 550-600 range, the average student in the country could not get an A in Columbia's freshman chemistry. Yet the Columhia course is not very different from the modern freshman chemistry anywhere else. I t is a rather theoretical course, stressing prohlem solving as a prime goal, and uses as a textbook Mahan's "College Chemistry." Students are expected to know how to do equilihrium calculations, rather than to, know how cement sets, for example. This course is typical of most modern basic courses. It is not the purpose of this paper to argue whether SAT scores measure native ability or environmentally acquired skills. But i t is very clear that in some sense they measure what mental skills the students bring to the course, and that there is an overwhelming correlation between whatever the math SAT measures and successful achievement in chemistry. A study of SAT scores can also provide other useful information. Students protest occasionally that the course is "too hard." It is clear from the graph that this is not so since the average grade is a t the C+/B- borderline a t Columbia. The SAT which corresponds is about 640. The average SAT for Columbia as a whole is 660, so the course is about a t the right level in terms of required ability. It is also noteworthy that the C students have a larger spread and a slightly higher average SAT score than would he expected from extrapolation of the A, B, and D groups. Presently, the C student category contains many underachievers who would get higher grades if they could work to their fullest. These people have higher SAT scores than their grades reflect, and thus the average for the C category is higher than we would predict. The larger 512 / Journal of ChemicalEducation
300
1
I 0
I I C B CHEMISTRY GRADE
I
A
Math SAT for grade categories. 0 Average SAT far a category. SAT for a category. X Lowest SATfor a category.
v
Top
spread would also be consistent with the hypothesis. If grades and SAT scores are virtually perfectly correlated, why do medical schools, for example, look a t grades at all? Do grades contain information about the student that SAT scores do not? Presumably grades do correlate with achievement in chemistry. That is, a student who gets an A is probably better a t doing equilibrium calculations than a C student. But presumably there is no need for anybody hut a chemist to do equilibrium calculations in real life. Educators are fond of saying, when pushed into this corner, that learning science, "teaches people to solve problems," "trains their minds," "teaches them to think," etc. It looks very much as though SAT scores would he equally helpful in deciding whether people can think well, and that there is no need for specific measurement as to whether Joe Jones can do equilihrium calculations. If the whole object were learning to think, then surely we would use an SAT type test a t graduation as the sole criterion for admission to professional school. In fact, the GRE's are generally considered to he rather poor predictors of success in professional school. What is i t then about grades that makes them useful? This question can be answered by recourse to the plot. It is clear that if a student has an SAT of 550, we can assure him that he isn't going to get an A. But if he comes in with an SAT score of 800, then he may get an A or B or
C. There is little correlation among the high SAT's for each grade category. This is because getting an A requires more than raw aptitude. It requires perseverance, willingness to work hard, postpone immediate gratifications, etc. The A is awarded solely on the skill a t doing equilibrium calculations, but i t also incidentally measures other variables. It is these other variables which are so important to success in professional schools and this is the reason why grades are looked at. In summary then, the syllogism used by a professional school admissions committee is as follows Willingness to learn, perseverance, etc., are important. Grades measure both this and are correlated with ability (SAT measures ability only.) Therefore, grades are important. The motivational question, however, is only important for students with high SAT scores. The math SAT still is a good way to sort out students who are likely to have trouble in freshman chemistry. It has the further advantage that it is totally objective and nondiscriminatory. Amelioration Experiment The plot in the figure provides a superb method of selecting students for an amelioration project. One can select on the basis of low SAT's and he virtually certain of collecting all of the potential high risk students. A two point course (16 points is a full load) was set up at Columbia to run parallel with the main lecture course. About sixty students, mostly pre-meds, chosen to have SAT's of 610 or lower, enrolled in this supplementary course, though this rule was bent on occasion if,a student made an anguished plea. Two sections were offered, and hoth were taught by the author. Most of the time was devoted to the lectures. Occasionally there would he a problem session, where students would work ~rohlemson the blackboard. The lectures did not attembt to teach the ~ r i n c i ~ l of e s the suhiect: they were devoted completely to ihe sohtion of various sets i f orohlems of the basic tvnes .. encountered in the lecture course. Problems were gone through step by step. Students were taught how to recognize the various types of problems, and taught algorithms for solving them.
Table 1. Grade Distribution of Students in Special Course Grade in Lecture Course
Drop,
ABS, F*.
Average Math SAT
Passed
Failed
1411
1411
4
7
Control Group
28
P
561
559
a F * is a grade meaning "did not attend." ABS means "did not take final exam," which usually ends up as F.
Table 2. Lowering of Minimum SATScores by Grade Category Minimum SAT Minimum SAT (lecture (lecture course Grade course and Catezorv onlv) sundement) Difference
The author realized early that there was a danger that the course would turn into a ghetto where students would feel as though they had been singled out as "dummies." Hence, a model that this was a prophylactic treatment for a disease was developed as a way to think about the situation. One is not faulted for having been exposed to malaria, hut the prudent man takes something to prevent its hreaking out. In the same way, it was hoped that students would realize that cooperating with this treatment was the best way to keep the disease of flunking freshman chemistry from actually hreaking out. The course was graded pass/fail. For every meeting, a homework assignment of about 30-60 min was required. An honest try a t a reasonable numher of these was required as a condition for a pass. The homework assignments were not accepted late, and to keep from being bombarded by sob stories, the "reasonable number" needed to pass was kept rather low. This requirement was set up to save the students from themselves. It was stressed that i t is essential to do chemistry every day. If one is going to swim the mile, he does not swim ten miles the day before the meet, hut swims a couple of miles every day. Results The attendance was very good, aside from intermittent plagues of lateness. There was rather general positive reaction to the course from students on questionnaires distributed a t the end of the year. The course lasted one semester only and there was an almost general plea for a second term course of the same type. We have shown in the first part of this paper that there is a very strong dependence of grade on SAT scores. Hence, it is possible to construct a control group of those whose SAT scores would have made them eligible for the supplementary course had it existed in 1972. This group is composed of those whose SAT math scores or chemistry achievement test scores are less than 610. (The latter group is to compensate for the leakage of more qualified people into the course by the bending of the rules that occurred. It is less than 20% of the control group.) The mean math SAT scores of the two groups were closely matched at 559 for the control group and 561 for the supplementary class. The SAT ranges were also similar. The grade distribution was as shown in Table 1. There is a small increase in the numbers receiving A's and B's and a reduction of D's and F's. The control erouD .. . dron rate was 25?$ The experimental gro1111drop rate was 167~. The diflerencc.; in ~ r a d e sare aulte iuhtle. howver. and to get convincing evidence it is necessary to do a statistical analysis on the data. For this purpose, three people who were part of hoth groups (course repeaters) and two who joined late were excluded. The difference in mean grade is 0.29 on a four point grade scale. A t-test was then performed to see if one could say that the groups were really different or if the difference was due to chance. The t value of 2.54 tells us that the grade improvement is significant, and that there is less than a 1%probability that it arose from chance. Grading was not done by the supplementary course, but by the lecturer in the standard course which the students were required to take simultaneously. The lecturers in the main course were not aware of who was a member of the supplemen~ar?class, and the author, u.ho taught the supplementag. class, had nu prior access to exnms t o he glum in the standard course. Hence, the grading process was totally independent of the supplementary course. No text was used hut when the course is offered again, homework assignments will probably he made from Sienko, "Chemical Problems." This hook has problems of almost all types used in the course, and an abundance of solutions also. Questions were answered during class, and also students Volume 52, Number 8. August 1975 / 513
were permitted to drop into the author's office. This had to he restricted occasionally a t busy periods by the requirement of an advance appointment but almost always the delay was less than 24 hours. Rarely was the student told the answer; usually he was forced to figure i t out for himself by Socratic questioning. It is the author's vague feeling, unhacked by statistical evidence, that office visits had very little positive effect on student grades. They did, however, establish rapport, and give the students confidence. There has also been a small hut significant lowering of the minimum math SAT for each grade category. The lowering, shown in Table 2, amounts to 30 to 60 points in the previous minimum SAT scores for each category. There was no drastic change in the college chemistry enrollment or average math SAT for the two years that are being compared. Discussion
The most interesting feature of the results is that the lowering of minimum SAT scores occurs uniformly. Hence the supplementary course seemed to help A, B, and C students almost equally. It may be that the larger lowering for the C category may include most underachievers, and these are the people whom the discipline of the supplementary course should help the most. The results also seem to argue that it is impossible by minor changes in curriculum to do much to change the correlation between grades and whatever qualities the SAT measures. The supplementary course was quite a drastic change in curriculum, providing for much more repetition and student time spent doing chemistry, yet this did not result in drastic changes in performance. Whatever the student brings to his first year chemistry course in terms of mental equipment is more important than anything that happens during the course. It will also be quite obvious that there is a severe cost effectiveness problem. The net number of students getting A's or B's is changed from 23% to 37% by this curriculum change. This is a gain of 15% or about 10 students. The cost of the program in terms of manpower is really quite large. The cost per new top-half student is of the order of $500 each. It is also not clear whether the supplementary course will have a lasting effect, ("produce a long lived immunity" in the medical model discussed above) or whether the students will simply flunk as badly as before but in the second semester or in a higher level science course. If this happens, the course is probably pernicious, since these students then are seduced into doing much more work,
514 / Journal of Chemical Education
and wasting much more time when the best thing they could do would be to flunk chemistry, and get it over with. It is often foreotten that leamine what one cannot do well is part of knowing oneself. However. the students in this class suffered ~rimarilv from an inability to do chemical problems that were mathematical. The specific difficulty seemed to he an inability to translate from words to algebra. In the Columbia chemistry curriculum, most of the highly mathematical material is concentrated in the first term. If the student survives this, he is unlikely to be tripped up in the more qualitative second term, in organic chemistry or biology. The support of this course comes when i t is most needed from a curriculum standpoint. Also the person who is an underachiever because of some hidden maladjustment is likely to have his performance further weakened by the strain of the first semester adjustment to the college environment, and the course comes a t the strategic moment. No discussion of this course would he complete without mention of the paradox brought out by my colleague George Flynn. Suppose that a miracle happened, and all of the students in the supplementary class got A in the main lecture course. Since the grading is on a curve with the median set a t the C+/B- line, then the net effect would be to lower the grades of everybody else in the main stream course. As longas the supplementary course is relatively unsuccessful, or its population small with respect to the main stream, this paradox does not become a Goblem. However, the net effect of the supplementary course is to make i t harder for evervhodv to aet the same made as before, and thus raises the- standard-of performance required. This is in direct contradiction to the intuitive result, which is that the creation of this course represents a concession to the lower half of the class, and a lowering of standards. It should be stated that this curriculum structure completely separated the grading and teaching functions. There is an innate conflict of interest if this is not done. Grading is one job; teaching is another. One can more readily develop a genuine learning situation by separating the two, and the success of the course may well have resulted from this single factor of organization. Acknowledgment
I am grateful to P. Wolfe and D. Stern, the graders for this course. Also, thanks are owed to the Columbia College Dean's Office who h e l ~ e dme assemble the SAT fieures, and especially to Dean Geisler, who first pointed out that there seemed to be a relations hi^ between math SAT and chemistry grades.
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