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Measurement In Chemistry, Mathematics, And Physics Education: Student Explanations Of Organic Chemistry Reaction Mechanisms And Instructional Practices In Introductory Courses, Brandon J. Yik

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The work in this dissertation is presented in two parts. The first part (Chapters 3 and 4) details work relating to students’ explanations of reaction mechanisms in organic chemistry. The second part (Chapters 5 and 6) details work relating to the evaluating the uptake of research-based instructional practices in introductory chemistry, mathematics, and physics courses.

To evaluate learning of organic chemistry reactions, instructors must ask students to construct written explanations of reaction mechanisms. Written assessments should focus on what is happening and why it is happening to promote deeper student understanding. However, for instructors to gain insight into students’ understanding, …

Measuring And Improving Student Attitude In College-Level Chemistry: A Novel Survey Methodology And Social-Psychological Interventions, Ying Wang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

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 …