le Status of General Chemistrv
The general chemistry course is the economic cornerstone of most maduate chemistry 'I'his "service" load . departments. . in the first two years often supports other undergraduate and graduate instructional programs. It is, therefore, important that this course be well managed. Management issues, rather than criteria of course content and student performance, often determine the status of general chemistry in a local setting. This article is intended to confront readers with a wide variety of issues which, often daily, confront the coordinator of a general chemisty program. Credits and Organization General Chemistry is usually taught as a four or five credit course. On Quartercalendars, a two- or three-quarter sequence is used. The-course runs two semesters on the &nester system. Two, three or four lecture periods per week are common. There may be one and perhaps two recitation classes per week. Lectures are taught by senior faculty. Recitations may he taueht bv senior facultv. though thev are more often taueht by graduate teaching a.kistan& (GTAS). One three-hour, one four-hour, or two two-hour laboratory periods are common. Some departments defer laboratory instruction for one semester or one quarter go that the first lecture course is not accompanied by laboratory experience. Stated advantages to postponing iah are balancing of GTA loads and reducing the number of lab enrollments due to lecture course attrition. This last point is viewed as a disadvantage by those who feel that having a lab would increase overall course retention. Also, for grading purposes, some departments separate laboratory from lecture, even though concurrent registrations are usually required. Some administrative advantages accrue to this organization. When laboratory sections are tightly coupled through registration to a oarticular lecture class. one verv imoortant instructional idvantage is that the lehturer has an opportunity to visit all students during a few scheduled time periods each week. In a large department, laboratories are scheduled in block times, sometimes having three or four dasses use the same lab each day. Some departments have been successful in using ooen unscheduled laboratories. and these oreseut their own unique management problems.
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Graduate Teaching Assistants General chemistry is taught for purposes, among others. of transmitting knowledge and replenishing the ranks of chemists. Graduate oroerarns aremaintained for the same reasons. I accept, as an article of faith, that graduate instruction must be conducted for the sustenance of our orofession and our society. Graduate education is very expensive. There is no way for most graduate students t o begin to defray the actual total costs of their education. The use of the graduate teaching assistantship to provide a sustaining salary to teaching assistants is an accepted and almost universal practice. In exchange for a minimal stipend, the teaching assistant provides teaching services, usually by teaching in laboratory and/or recitation classes. Whenever teaching assistants are used in the classroom, the average "instructional entropy" increases. Some of this entropy increase is inevitable. Opportunities must somehow be provided to replenish the teaching ranks. At-one point in every teacher's career s h e will have no experience and will be learning how to teach. Few
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beginning GTAs have had any formal teacher training or experience. Because so few GTAs have had any teaching experience, some kind of training procedure is appropriate. A wide variety of approaches to this training have been adopted. Traditionally there has been concern for administrative and organizational issues associated with teaching one or several sperific courses at the institution. Recently there has been increased emphasison providing new G'rAs with instmrtion on tearhing methods (1.2). Realistically, few institutions hnve p r ~ v i d r d GI'As with meanineful feedback germane to their teachinr means (other than st; performance, and fiw have used dent evalutions) to evaluate teachine nerformance (3). The responsibilities assigned to G Fvary ~ enorm&ly. In addition to required contact hours, GTAs may be required to: hold office hours; grade; proctor; attend lecture (4). In some "low-control" management settings, the GTA has complete control of student grading. In "high-control" settings, the GTA is required to arrive a t some predetermined grade distribution or to submit trial grades for leveling to predetermined standards by a computer (5).The absence of other program elements-causes t h e low-control procedures to maximize instructional entropy which the high-control procedures attempt to minimize. On the other hand, high-control procedures tend to limit the growth of the GTA as a teacher. Given suitable trainine. feedback. and evaluation nrocedures. together with reasonibly explicit objectives, a sksfactoril; low level of instructional entronv . can he maintained with low-control. When dealing with GTAs, several, sometimes conflicting ethical questions must be answered: What is in the best interest of the undergraduate?; What is in the best interest of the GTA?; What is in the best interest of the department and the institution? Anv de~artment'sutilization of GTAs clearlv is dependent uponits responses to these questions. The use of GTAs for whom English is not the native language hm presented problems. T O ~ F Isrores . have not proven to beadequate measures of Enalish speakinz ability. Student complain& regarding the speaking ability o f f o r e i g d ~ are ~~s sometimes well founded. State legislatures and aggressive alumni organizations are taking more active roles-in refocussing priorities in this area. Some institutions have placed strict numerical limits uoon the nercentaee of non-U.S. citirens who may he employed as GTAs. Sometimes one feels that GTA hirine oolicies are less considerate of the undermaduate " than, perhips, they ought to he. GTAs are inteeral comoonents of comorehensive deoartmental programsT~iththem comes an inevitable increase in instructional entropy. We have an obligation to keep this increased entropy within bounds. This means that some energy, that could be spent elsewhere in a department, must he devoted to managing the GTA program so as to monitor and maintain its effectiveness within the teaching system.
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Examinations and Grading Because so many student examinations per semester are involved. serious manaeerial consideration must he eiven to the of settingand scoring exams for thegeneral chemistrv course. The use of machine scored exams. usuallv coupled with computer managed record keeping, has become
commonplace. Exam items for machine scoring are usually set in the multiple choice format, although true/false and matching items-can be used. i he advantages to machine scored exams include consistency in eradine, speed in turnaround, and accuracy of record keeping. clever programmers can devise schemes wherein several among the responses to a question receive some partial credit, and questions can be weighted differently. Also, detailed analyses of each item are possible. Accurate records of the difficulty and discrimination of each item may he kept. Each student's responses to each item may he recorded. Numerous schemes for computer managed exam scoring and record keeping have appeared in this Journal. Among the disadvantages to machine graded exams, two stand out. First. the exam must be set with extreme care to ensure that each question has a t least one (and usually only one) correct answer. Second, this exam format places high emphasis on recognition learning. Open ended formats, (fillin-the-blanks, problems, essays) provide fewer cues to the answers and thus may tap somewhat different intellectual skills than do "ohiective" tests. Computer of exams themselves is now commonplace (6). Some institutions use computers to generate exams for which hand grading is expected. Hand graded exams, while they allow testing of a much wider varlcty of skills than do machine graded exams, have several drawbacks. There are inevitable scoring errors, no matter how careful are the facultv" and GTA eraders. There is little documentation of exam items: it is usually too cumbersome to comoute difficulties and discrimination indices. Finally, there is ;temptation for students to cheat by changing answers on returned naners-somethine entirelv avoided because machine graded papers are usually not returned. Other considerations related to exams include the number. scheduling, and commonality of exams. Frequent exams usuallv imnrove oerformance. Thus several hour exams (four. . . five oisix) br weekly quizzes with a few hour exams are typical. Exams mav be scheduled during lecture or recitation neriods. or during butside-of-class evening or early morning hours: When multisection courses are involved, "common exams" for all sections are sometimes used. I t is more often found that only the final exam is a common exam, and this is fre~uentfv one of the ACS standardized tests. Among freshman courses, chemistry ranks very high in terms of the degree of abstract thinking required for success. The vogue terminology for this is "formal operational thinking." Studies of incoming freshmen indicate that as many as half are unable to deal with such thinking. Success rates in general chemistry are typically lower than those in other college courses, particularly when application of formal conceots is an expected student nerformance. he bottom line of an instructor's evaluation of student ~erformanceis the final course erade. For each course there iesults a final grade distribution. I t has been my experience that grosslv disoroportionate attention is given to final grade distributiom. At some institutions, no othkr criterion i;seriously reviewed when evaluating a course. At the verv least. those involved in managing chemistry should acquaint themselves with institutional practices with resDect to grading.
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Safety Safety in general chemistry has become a maior manaeemeot is&. Attention hasalways been paid tosafity: students wcar eye protection and sign safety forms; lah manuals list aafetv hazards: exams include safetv related items: G'I'As receive safety training; emergency procedures are employed and incidents are documented. These safetv considerations are or ought to he a part of every well-managed program. OSHA, a relativelv new reeulatow aeencv. saeaks to all sorts of health and safety pro61ems. he-thr&t of OSHA intervention in instmctional laboratory programs, until recently,
loomed very large. Just as the first draft of this article was prepared, the President and the Secretary of Lahor reined-in a runaway OSHA. We can expect less OSHA involvement in everyday practice than had once been anticipated. Program managers should, however, run an extremely tight ship with respect to operating and routinely enforcing an aggressive safety program. Too, one should be especially careful about using known mild carcinogens and suspected carcinogens in experiments, for these win bring on spates of law suits. This Journal has always provided assistance to chemistry teachers in safetv related matters. and continues to he one of the best sources'bf help. Evaluations of Teachers and Courses Reauired evaluation of courses and teachers bv students is becoming the rule rather than the exception: Research studies of several years ago, claiming high correlation between student learning and teacher rating, probably ought to be repeated in today's social climate. I have seen the data from one unpublished experiment in which a department chairman demonstrated a hieh oositivecorrelation between theaveraee course grade awaidid and the average student evaluation ratine obtained bv teachers in his department. This experimentseemed to me to be a rather fai; test of the hypothesis of a gradelevaluation relationship, one which I hope will be published. Since only a small fraction of students in the first two years go on in chemistry, there is a strong temptation to grade high (usually by reducing the amount of problemsolving and analysis required on exams) in an attempt to receive eood evaluations. The results of the unouhlished experiment more-or-less determined the degreeto which one could hope to he successful by manipulating grades in one department. I suspect that this experiment is replicable a t my school and a t other olaces. Because eatherine the data is so trivial, all chemistry chairpenons should consiier running the experiment. Today, administrators press for "reducing grade inflation." Evaluation is almost certainlv one of the manv causes of erade inflation. As with grading, a less than rational climate surrounds teacher evaluation, one highly subject to external whims. Evaluations can still be used t o learn about courses and teaching. It is probably unwise to interpret results in the same way as one did as recently as five years ago.
Other Management Issues Scheduling of class times and teaching assignments can be difficult. There is the matter of which personnel should teach. Have faculty preferences been considered? Are the faculty assignments matched with their abilities? Are GTAs assigned in accordance with their strendhs? Have GTAs been assimed to senior faculty in the o p t i r d way? There are also scheduling ~rohlems.oarticularlv when laree numbers of multisection classes a& involved. S&eral dep&ments have used computer assisted scheduling routines (7). Selection of textbooks is another issue. Text choices are made by one or two individuals, or, more commonly, by a committee. Textbook selection is usually less than a scientific process when manv individuals become involved. Dealing with cheating can become an exasperating problem. In some programs, so little attention has been paid to the development of pewond relations hetween staff and students that some stuclenm are able to hire successful course alumni (ringers) to take their examinations. Some general techniques are available to discourage cheating: use assigned seating; have the professor or GTA verify each student by sight; use scrambled or other multiple exam forms; record attendance a t exams; have carbon copies of lab data signed and turned in before students leave lab. Purchasine for the laree eeneral chemistrv course can be and one shouli not hesitate to a challenge. ~ a r ~ a ishod, ns ask. This is particularly true for equipment purchases (hal~
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ances, calculators, and spectrophotometers), glassware, and some chemicals. Publishers make deals too. Whenever a text is adopted with supporting slides, transparencies, tapes, and so forth, these materials should first he asked for rather than ordered. Staff personnel become an important consideration in general chemistry. One frequently finds such line positions as: instructional laboratory manager; lecture demonstrator; stockroom supervisor; compounder. Sometimes lahoratory managers are given faculty rank. The level of support required to maintain a large program can he enormous. Hundreds of weekly hours of "work-studv" helo are often reouired to maintain adequate program activities. Lnhoratory and stockroom orohlems must he dealt with. Should students work at common stations or he assigned a drawer and a set of equipment? How should breakage be recovered, if a t all? How should lab fees and deposits he collected and returned? Most general chemistry stockrooms use some kind of computer management to control inventories and charges. Which of these systems is hest? Outside-of-class help for students is a major issue. How should professors and GTAs establish office hours? Is there to he a resource room for general chemistry students? If so, how should it he staffed-with full time GTAs, GTAs on office hours. volunteer facuttv and students. or some other wav? What materials should be availahle-oiher texts, old exams, workbooks, audio-hoes. videotaoes? What materials should he kept in the library? w h a t loan policies should he established? Management and the Status of General Chemistry Space in this Journal does not exist to explore all of the
738 1 Journal of Chemical Education
ins-and-outs of each management issue. The reader not familiar with large general chemistry programs may have been shocked to read that some of these issues have even been mentioned, let alone to learn that each can be of some magnitude. The status of general chemistry is both determined by and obscured by management issues. Local considerations of existing precedents,availahle funds, faculty, faculty interests and objectives, the number and nature of GTA appointments, space and staff lines will largely dictate the management decisions under which a program operates. Experienced coordinators are familiar with these issues since thev wrestle with them daily. Most readers of this article are not exnerienced coordinators. I t may now he apparent why the issues of course content and student learnine can become obscured bv other "oractical" considerations.~hileit may be claimed that thk coordinators, themselves. create too much manaeement. some problems due simplyto the magnitude of the classes are inevitable. Once mention of these issues is made. however. I think the reader is in a better position to evaluate the s t a t k of a local general chemistry program. Literature Cited Ill Project TEACH Staff. J. CHEM. EDUC., 53, 209 (1976): Garland, J . K.. J. CHEM. EDUC., 54,216 119771. I21 S w CHEDAbrtraeL? 26-39, 42, "Abtractraf Papea, 113rd Natimai ACS Meelin#: American Chemical Society. Washington, D.C.. 1977. (31 Brook8.D. W . o f al..J.CHEM. EDUC.53.186 119761. (41 Renfrew,M. M.. and Moellei, T., CHED23,"AhstracfrrofPapea.172nd ACS MeoLiny." American Chemical Sneiefy, WashingLon, D.C..1976. (51 Schwendemsn,R. H.,J. CHEM. EDlIC.,45, 129 119681. I61 Seely.0.Jr..and Willis, V.AEDSJourno1. 65. (Spring 19761. (71 Thorne,J. M.,etal.,.I. CHEM. EDUC., 17, lb? (19701.
