What Makes Chemistry Difficult? Alternate Perceptions
Carolyn S. Carter Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210 Nancy W. Brickhouse Department of Educational Development, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716 Student nerceotions of the context of our chemistrv courses influence their learning. The context of a course is perceived differently by students and teachers hecause their experiences, knowledge, goals, needs, and motivations are different. We may hegin to understand student difficulties in chemistry if we understand the ways in which their perceptions of the context of our chemistry courses differ from our perceptions. Otherwise, students and faculty are living in different worlds and speaking different languages. Manv students aav that chemistrv is difficult. These nerceived-difficulties a"re part of the "context in which tiese students develon chemical concents and oroblem-solvine skills. Faculty p&ceptions of the di:fficultie&nfluence choice of curriculum, implementation of curriculum, and the nature of evaluation in chemistry courses. Thus, perceptions of difficulty are central to the classroom. Providing a way in which students can communicate honestly about their difficulties in chemistry can provide valuable information to the instructor about the context students impose upon their chemistry course. T o do this we surveyed 1200 students in our Chemistry 116 course a t Purdue University. The Course and Students Chemistry 116 is a second-semester mainstream general chemistry course for science and engineering majors. Almost
all of the students enrolled in Chemistrv 116 have had a t least one year of high nchool chemistry. The course includes two 50-minute lectures, one optional 50-minute help session, one 50-minute recitation, and one three-hour lab period each week. Additional resources include approximately 40 T. A. office hours per week and a resource room containing several tutors, lecture tapes, class notes, old exams, tutorial slides, computer programs and workbooks, several texts, and many other resources available 6 days and 5 nights each week. The lnltlal Survey
We distributed a two-page free-response survey to the approximately 1200 students in lab near the end of the semester. The students were requested to write five responses to each of the two questions: (1) What makes chemistry difficult? and (2) What can be done to overcome these difficulties? We randomlv selected annroximatelv 300 student responses for examination. ~ h k ~ o ~ ureplies l a r fell into three categories: (1) factors that students could control (Table 1); (2) factors that were course-related (Table 2); and (3) factors inherent t o the nature of chemistrv (Table 3). A few of the frequent responses-were not included in the second survey because the items were too narrow or were inevitable course-related factors (e.g., 7:30 a.m. labs).
Volume 66
Number 3
March 1989
223
The Second Survey
The second survev listed the 10 most nonular items in each of the three catdgories (Tables 1-3). w e Hsked the 1200 students to choose the five most imnortant and the five least important items in each of the three categories. Tables 1-3 list percentages of students who replied that a particular factor was very important. Items 31-33 inTable 4 were written to determine which of the three categories listed the students believed had the greatest bearing on their success in chemistry. Becausesome studentsdid not complete theentiresurvey, the percentage agreeing to the relative imporrance of particular statements is sliehlh lower in Table 3 than in Table I . The percentage of s
