The use of an intervention programme to improve undergraduatestudents' chemical knowledge and address their misconceptions

Abstract

The expansion of higher education in Ireland since the 1980's has led to a particularly diverse group of students, coming from different backgrounds with varied prior learning experiences. This includes some with little or no Chemistry background entering science courses at university. This is of considerable concern in our institution, as there are high levels of student attrition in the area of science, and in order to combat this problem an Intervention Programme (Phase 1) was developed. This programme sought to use the students' prior knowledge and misconceptions, identified through diagnostic testing, to develop a course of tutorials for the students that specifically targeted these areas of difficulty. The programme proved to be successful and those students who participated in the Intervention Programme improved their score in the post-test and showed an improvement in their concurrent and a subsequent Chemistry module, compared to students who did not participate. This has led to an Expanded Intervention Programme (Phase 2) being developed. This ran over two semesters, starting in first year and continuing into second year. This paper discusses the background to these programmes, the use of diagnostic testing in designing the intervention and their initial outcomes.