The tip of the iceberg in organic chemistry – revisited

Abstract

Students often perceive learning organic chemistry as a tremendous struggle, linking the invisible molecular level to the visible symbolic representations. Memorising reactions and not knowing how to approach or propose a reaction mechanism differs from what we want students to experience in an organic chemistry classroom. How do we shift this focus from rote memorisation to developing representational competence, enabling students to meaningfully engage with organic mechanisms to connect underlying molecular behaviour with observable chemical phenomena? In 2015, I looked back at the early work in organic chemistry education research to understand the state-of-the-art and potential missing research gaps worth exploring. Various research strands looking into student mechanistic reasoning, their representational competence, and how variables in the classroom impact their learning have developed since then. Ten years later, the question arises of how far we have come to understand the complex interplay of learning organic chemistry. Have we better understood how to help students to link the visible to the invisible? What happened to the iceberg of organic chemistry? How has our perspective on learning organic chemistry grown and acknowledged the interplay of multiple variables shaping the learning experience? In this perspective, the current state-of-the-art in organic chemistry education research is revisited by looking back on the achievements and advancements of the last decade and opening the discussion for potential future research endeavours.