The 1936-1937 COLLEGE CHEMISTRY TESTING PROGRAM* EARL W. PHELAN The Georgia State Womans College, Valdosta, Georgia
T
HIS second annual report of this Committee on the testing program in general chemistry marks the first year in which the tests have been given under the direct sponsorship of the Division of Chemical Education. During the past seven years, the Coijperative Test Service of the American Council on Education, under the supervision of Dr. Ben D. Wood, has been a t work on the general problem of the construction, distribution, and use of better tests a t the high-school and college levels. In the chemistry field this project has centered on the determination of the desired outcomes of instruction in chemistry, and the construction of adequate means of measuring those outcomes. In previous years, three different tests have been available, with resultinn difficultv in tabulation of
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data.' This year, more advertising of the tests was undertaken, and a greatly increased circulation achieved for a single fonb of the test, designed to measure the following fie1ds.t Part 1. Chemical Theory, Occurrence, Commercial Preparation, and Properties. Part 2. Vocabulary. Part 3. Familiarity with Symbols and 'Formulas. Part 4. Numerical Problems. Part 5. Balancing Chemical Equations. Part 6. Valence of Elements and Radicals. Part 7. Application of Principles. Table 1 shows the distribution of total scores. Scores on the individual parts varied from a maximum of 7 points for Part 6 to 58 points for Part 1. A con-
' "The 1935-36 college chemistry testing program," J. CHGM.
* Presented before the Division of Chemical Education at the Ennc., 14,22931 (1937).
ninety-fourth meeting of the A. C. S..Rochester, N. Y., September 6, 1937.
t Tests may be obtained from the Co6perative Test Service, 437 West 59th Street, New York City.
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College N =
%
183 174 153 7 139 214 120 187 228 30 29 142 86 76 169 23 70 31 34 875 33 38 262 88 40 92 107 79 35 83
* All 9504
20 PICURB
4 5 6 7 1 2 3 All Men's Women's Co-edu- Teachers Agricul- Junior colleges turd and Collegea Colleges l ~ i b ~ ~d i b e ~ a cational EngineerArts Liberal Arts Colleges Colleger Arts 1"s Co1le.e~ Collecen
Part 1 Part2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 0 Part 7 Total ~.-VAFZ.&BIL~YAMOND D I ? ~ ? ~ ~ B N VT OCATIO~L
PROFESSIONAL WAJ3
In Figure 3 are plotted the average percentile ratings for the five most popular professional groups. Care must, of course, be taken in interpreting this. It does not necessarily mean that a future farmer can be expectxd to do much poorer in chemistry than a prospective engineer. All that can be said is that as a result of all the factors of training, interest, experience, and heredity, the average engineering student does better in freshman chemistry than any other, and so on.
experiments in which one group is balanced against another with all variables constant except the one under consideration. TABLE 5
EIIECT01 HID=-SCAOOL CBBYZ~TFC~ Amrole,
Row Srorcs Part
Percrnrilrr
Without With High-achaol Chemistry
Withovt W~th High-school Chemintq
1 2
3
TIME DEVOTED TO LECTURE AND RECITATION
Figure 4 shows graphically the average percentile scores of students who devoted 2, 3, 4, and 5 hours per week, respectively, to lecture and recitation. The results are interesting both on the part scores and on the whole examination. It is evident that time spent in class is not the most important factor in determining how much chemistry a student will learn. The burden of proof seems to be on those who demand five hours per week. SIZE OF CLASS
4 5
6 7 Tetd No. of case8
TABLE 6 MBY Y S . WOYBS AYcrol"
Rour scores Mcn
Women
Mm
Women
1 2 3 4
22 13 12 18 18 6 11 99
17 12 11 14 17 5 8 83
58 51 49 57
4!2
5
Table 4 shows the distribution of college averages by size of group tested. Since this latter is not necessarily coincidental with the size of the class, this table cannot be used to settle the problem of large versus small classes. It will serve to demonstrate that the few very large groups included did not unbalance the national distribution. TABLE 4 COLLBOBAYBRACHSDISTPIBDTBD BY SIZBOP GPDUPTBSTBD
Percrniilrr Srorc
1-29
30-99
100-199
200-529
530
Totals
PREVIOUS TRAINING IN CHEMISTRY
Table 5 shows again what has been found frequently -that those who have had chemistry in high school do better than those who have not. MEN VS. WOMEN
Table 6 shows that 6518 men averaged noticeably better than 2485 women. Again, as in the other tables, it must be emphasized that these are not controlled
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