Graduation Year

2022

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Degree Granting Department

Chemistry

Major Professor

Scott Lewis, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Jennifer E. Lewis, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Theresa Evans-Nguyen, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Tony Tan, Ph.D.

Keywords

general chemistry, motivation, Q methodology, upper-level chemistry, utility value intervention

Abstract

Students’ attitude has been an important focus in the chemistry education community. However, there is a lack of research in evaluating interventions aiming to improve students’ attitude. Social-psychological interventions (SPIs), brief interventions that target students’ subjective experiences, were demonstrated to improve students’ attitude in instructional settings. In addition, accurately measuring students’ attitude helps researchers better understand the impact of the intervention. Therefore, the major goal of this work is to explore practices, particularly a novel survey methodology and a social-psychological intervention (SPI), to facilitate measuring and improving students’ attitude in college-level chemistry courses. This work also paid particular attention to upper-level chemistry students, who are close to graduation from the program. Investigating this group of students provides unique perspectives as to how to adjust instruction in chemistry courses.

Firstly, a utility value intervention (UVI) was employed and systematically evaluated in both an introductory (Chapter II) and an upper-level chemistry course (Chapter III). The results show that a UVI led to a consistent improvement in student achievement and among students who begin the course with less positive attitudes toward chemistry, and the UVI led to an improvement in students’ emotional satisfaction and utility value. Chapter II also explored a theoretical explanation for the relationship between UVI, attitude, and academic performance. A follow-up project of Chapter II is reported in Chapter III, where UVI was evaluated in an upper-level chemistry course for its relation to student performance. As a result, a range from no impact to a positive impact was found. In addition to the quantitative evaluation, the study qualitatively characterized student engagement in the intervention, namely how students internalized the perceived utility value of chemistry topics. The results suggest that the majority of students perceived a personal utility of chemistry topics, as the intervention intended. Furthermore, coding responses provided details on students’ career plans, which can facilitate with instruction in designing instruction and curriculum. In summary, enacting UVIs has low instructional costs and may benefit student performance and provide valuable insights for the instructors. Therefore, UVIs are recommended for consideration in instructional practices of upper-level chemistry courses.

Furthermore, a rank-sort survey was developed and implemented to measure students’ motivation towards an introductory chemistry course (Chapter IV). In a rank-sort survey, participants are required to rank a set of statements in terms of level of agreement with limits in place on how many items can be assigned a particular rank. In Chapter IV, a rank-sort survey was developed by using statements from an existing Likert-scale instrument, the Academic Motivation Survey in Chemistry. Data collected from the rank-sort surveys, compared to Likert-scale surveys, showed a better alignment with self-determination theory, the underlying theoretical framework, and a better ability to predict students’ academic performance in chemistry.

Finally, Chapter V characterized analytical chemistry students’ responses to open-ended assessments on acid-base titrations and thin-layer chromatography for the use of explanatory statements. Beyond, to understand whether explanatory statements were an expectation inherent in the instructional context of the setting, the analytical chemistry instructor’s lectures on acid-base titrations and thin-layer chromatography were analyzed with the same framework. The analysis found that students seldom invoked explanatory statements within their responses and that congruence between lectures and responses to assessment was primarily limited to the use of macroscopic, descriptive terms. Despite the fact that the lecture in class regularly invoked explanatory statements in one context, this did not translate to student use of explanatory statements.

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