510
JOURNAL oa CHEMICAL EDUCATION
MARCR.1929
THE ONE COLLEGE CHEMISTRY COURSE FOR FRESHMEN C. A. BUEHLER, UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE, KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE
Much has been written on the question of whether students entering college with high-school chemistry should or should not be given a separate course in the science. Harry Shipley Fry1 maintained that a college course suitable for all high-school students can be given. W. A. Everhart and , ~ a study of the results obtained by giving all students W. C. E b a ~ g hfrom the same lecture and recitation work but diierent laboratory work, advocated a classification of high-school students into sections according to "demonstrated ability" with occasional shifts from section to section as the need arises. F. E. Brown3concluded that a separate course should be given to students who have had high-school chemistry since stu- z...Fa Lo,C U 1DU,.tl, dents so grouped do better .t" work in later courses in chemistry. Alexander Silverman' agreed with F. E. Brown since he found that the percentage of students doing superior work is thereby increased. At the University of Tennessee but one course is given to freshmen taking chemistry. During the past six years the , , * 2 . 7 1 ,.8,.$s yegrades of these students have From 1 been compiled carefully with the hope that this information might be of some value in determining the advisability of having separate courses. This article deals with a study of these grades. The percentage of passing marks (65 or above) is shown in Figure 1. I t will be noted from this figure that the number of passes during the first term or first quarter is much less (with the exception of 1924-25) among students with no previous chemistry. On the other hand, the inverse is true during the second term from the years 1922 to 1926. At the beginning of the year of 1926-27 the University went on the quarter system. From this point on, the students with no previous chemistry do not exceed until the third quarter. Another point of significance in connection with Figure 1 is the fact that the students with no previous chemistry always improve
.
,.
191.11
Tms JOURNAL, 2,260 (Apr., 1925). Ibid., 2, 770 (Sept., 1925). Ibid., 3,301 (Mar., 1926).
' Ibid.,5,317 (Mar., 1928).
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after the first term or quarter. In other words, they are on the upward trend. This is not true, particularly recently, of the students with previous training in chemistry. As a rule this group seems to do the best work a t the beginning of the college year, but their record is on the decline. How are we to account for this decline in the number of passing marks among the higb-school trained group? Several reasons suggest themselves. Possibly the work is so easy that this arouo acauires i t with little effort and as a result forms loose habits of study which account for the later higher fatalities. Possibly the subject matter a t the beginning contains too much review material with the result that the science becomes uninteresting to this group. It is, no doubt, true, -, too, that the psychology of a mixed group of this kind is bad. F~arrnn 2 -Students with no previous train~ ~ W I I03MUDW- I*.* -:.t m~.m ing feel that they should not be n =_a. oh-. m d . to compite with high- - r 8. school trained students. The r-1 latter do good work a t the be*. ginning since their status in college has not been determined, but later they become more certain of themselves, possibly over-confident, especially since Us% they are working with a conFrowE 3 siderable number of classmates with no previous chemistry and, as a result, their passing record goes on the downward trend. The system of grading used a t the University of Tennessee is as follows: &
. .
$I9 _
--
n
.
D
= 65-75
E W
below 656 = withdrawn =
Condition marks are given to some, slightly helow 65, who, in the opinion of the instructor, may be able to pass another final examination. In this compilation all condition marks were placed with the marks into which they had been converted by the students with the exception of those acquired during the third quarter, 1928. In this case it was necessary to estimate the final marks since these people do not remove these condition marks until the fall.
The distribution of marks in percentages for both classes of students is shown in Figures 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. From Figures 2 and 3 it can be seen that the student with high-school training stands about two and one-half times more of a chance of getting an A during the first term or quarter than his classmate with no previous chemistry. The same Figures show that the trained student has approximately twice as much of a chance of getting a B. The variation among C's and D's is not so pronounced during this term and quarter. In the case of the F's, as shown indirectly in Figure 1, the untrained students have the greater percentage. This percentage is much greater by the quarter system, probably due to the fact that the students with no previous training do not have quite as much time to become accustomed to the nature of the work. During the latter or ti on of the student's work (Figures 4, 5, and 6) the variation between the percentages of A's and B's is not so great although, as a rule, the students with previous training stand a better chance of getting such a mark. The percentage of F's is greater among the untrained FIGURE 6 students during the second quarter (Figure 5) but during the second term (Figure 4) or third quarter (Figure 6) a greater number of students with previous training fail.
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Summary A study of the grades made by all students taking one general chemistry course a t the University of Tennessee shows that:
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(1) Students with high-school chemistry make a better record during the first part of the work and they always stand a better chance of getting an AorB. (2) Students with no high-school chemistry have the better record during the latter portion of the work. Several suggestions, which may account for this superiority on the part of the untrained students, are given.
