Melissa A.
Collini
,
Lauren A.
Rocha
,
Jayda E.
Ford
,
Rebecca
Weber
* and
Molly B.
Atkinson
*
Department of Chemistry, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA. E-mail: rebecca.weber@unt.edu; molly.atkinson@unt.edu
First published on 7th February 2023
Despite the important role organic chemistry plays in a wide range of industries, the undergraduate organic chemistry course sequence is considered to be difficult for and feared by students. Although work has been done to identify and address student difficulties within the cognitive and psychomotor domains, little work has focused on investigating student affect towards organic chemistry. Identifying student emotions towards the course and how these emotions impact students’ learning experiences is a key component in addressing student success in organic chemistry. In general chemistry studies, attitudes have been linked to persistence and performance in the class, but little work has been done to determine what role attitude plays in organic chemistry students’ experiences. In this qualitative study, student attitudes towards organic chemistry and the influences that shape those attitudes were explored. Students displayed a wide range of attitudes towards organic chemistry, including positive, negative, neutral, and blended attitudes. Five major influences were shown to have shaped these attitudes including the reputation of the course, students’ educators, experiences with organic chemistry, experiences with introductory chemistry, and individual experiences. Findings also indicated that many student attitudes towards organic chemistry are in place before they have begun the course, but that students’ attitudes may change after interacting with the course material. Limitations of this investigation, as well as implications for research and practitioners, are discussed.
In addition to the wide-ranging applications of the subject, the notoriety of the organic chemistry sequence also seems to be pervasive. This notorious reputation is referenced in chemistry education research literature, although students’ attitudes towards the course have yet to be documented outside of anecdotal evidence or in service of investigating an intervention (Hagen, 2000; Grove et al., 2008; Rocabado et al., 2019). Academic success in organic chemistry in terms of drop/fail/withdraw rates is low, with attrition rates often in the 30–50% range (Hagen, 2000; Grove et al., 2008). Other measures of academic success in the course, such as satisfaction, acquisition of desired skills, and post-college performance are either not well documented or demonstrate low levels of success (York et al., 2015). In the classroom, Graulich concluded that organic chemistry students “at all levels obviously do what we want them to do without knowing what we want them to know” (Graulich, 2015). Improving students’ experiences in the organic chemistry sequence could aid student success in the form of persistence and subsequent enrollment (Lewis, 2014). Further, improving students’ learning experiences could assist in diversifying the upcoming workforce, as it has been shown that students who have been historically and systemically excluded from science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines demonstrate increased performance after classroom interventions in comparison to their peers (National Academies Press, 2011; Basso et al., 2018; Roberts et al., 2018; van Vorst, 2018).
Before interventions can be implemented, however, possible causes of low student success in this course should be identified. Previous research has focused primarily on understanding issues associated with the content of organic chemistry courses, such as problem solving, cognitive skills, and conceptual knowledge (Cartrette and Mayo, 2011; Stieff, 2011; Grove et al., 2012; Grove and Bretz, 2012; Graulich, 2015). However, a student's learning experience does not consist of content alone – a meaningful learning experience is the culmination of the overlapping domains of cognition (thinking), psychomotor (acting), and affect (feeling) (Novak, 1977, 1998; Bretz, 2001).
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Fig. 1 A representation of Novak's theory of Human Constructivism, demonstrating how feeling, thinking, and acting are essential components to a meaningful learning (ML) experience (Novak, 1977, 1998; Bretz, 2001). |
While these domains all contribute to learning experiences in organic chemistry, and all should be investigated thoroughly, students’ affect towards organic chemistry has rarely been reported (Flaherty, 2020). A review of the chemistry education research literature in the affective domain by Flaherty found only 11 studies focused within the context of organic chemistry (Flaherty, 2020). These 11 studies were concentrated on students’ laboratory experiences, motivation, self-efficacy, and attitude.
Related to students’ laboratory experiences, Galloway and Bretz investigated how students’ feelings in the laboratory impacted their meaningful learning experiences by developing the Meaningful Learning in the Laboratory Instrument (MLLI) which measures cognitive and affective expectations and experiences (Galloway and Bretz, 2015a). In a follow-up study, Galloway and Bretz administered the MLLI longitudinally and found that organic chemistry students consistently reported unfulfilled expectations in their organic chemistry laboratories (Galloway and Bretz, 2015b). Galloway and colleagues further investigated affective experiences in the laboratory through a qualitative approach; this research demonstrated that students’ affective experiences impacted their cognitive and psychomotor experiences (Galloway et al., 2015).
Related to students’ motivation, Lynch and Trujillo used the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) in a quantitative approach focused on exploring relationships between motivation and academic performance, finding that self-efficacy was most consistently correlated with end-of-semester grades (Lynch and Trujillo, 2011). Liu and colleagues further examined motivation in organic chemistry classes by altering the Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) to be used in organic chemistry (AMS-Chemistry) (Liu et al., 2018). These researchers confirmed that the AMS-Chemistry generates valid and reliable data when used in the organic classroom and found that students are more motivated in a flipped classroom, although determinations were not made about whether that motivation was intrinsic or extrinsic (Liu et al., 2018). Austin and colleagues also investigated motivation from a quantitative approach by modifying the Science Motivation Questionnaire II to create the Organic Chemistry Motivation Survey (OCMS) (Austin et al., 2018). They found that while students were highly motivated towards earning a higher grade, motivation was not strongly correlated to performance; rather, self-efficacy was correlated to performance (Austin et al., 2018). Further related to students’ self-efficacy, Villafañe and colleagues measured task-specific organic chemistry self-efficacy (OCSE) and reported a reciprocal causation relationship between self-efficacy and performance in the course (Villafañe et al., 2016). Gibbons and Raker expanded on this work by identifying that self-concept, rather than self-efficacy, is a good predictor of initial achievement assessments and that research on both of these constructs together may be necessary to gain a full understanding of students’ self-belief emotions (Gibbons and Raker, 2019). To further explore achievement in organic chemistry, Raker and colleagues developed the organic chemistry specific Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ-OCHEM) and confirmed that the data was valid and reliable for use in organic chemistry settings to investigate achievement emotions (Raker et al., 2019). More work in this area done by Gibbons and colleagues investigated anxiety and enjoyment of organic chemistry students (Gibbons et al., 2018). This study found an inverse relationship between anxiety and performance, and a positive relationship between enjoyment and performance. These studies taken as a whole demonstrate the impact that affect can have on performance in organic chemistry.
Attitude is an aspect of the affective domain that has been shown to impact performance in general chemistry settings but has not been thoroughly explored in organic chemistry education research (Flaherty, 2020). The majority of the work related to attitudes takes a quantitative approach to assessing attitudes in general chemistry courses, largely building upon the ground-breaking development of the Attitudes towards the Subject of Chemistry Inventory (ASCI) (Bauer, 2008). The ASCI provided an inventory that quantitatively measured attitudes and the underlying factors of this construct with a three-factor, two-item structure (factors – interest and utility, anxiety, and intellectual accessibility; items – fear and emotional satisfaction) (Bauer, 2008). Xu and Lewis developed the ASCIv2 by shortening the ASCI for more convenient use in classrooms. It investigated only two factors (intellectual accessibility and emotional satisfaction) and was shown to produce valid and reliable data in several settings (Xu and Lewis, 2011; Brandriet et al., 2011, 2013; Kahveci, 2015; Chan and Bauer, 2016; Montes et al., 2018). Rocabado and colleagues developed the second modification of the ASCI (ASCIv3) by switching two of the items in the inventory to ensure that having multiple items within the same subscale grouped together was not impacting data collection, finding that the change did not impact validity (Rocabado et al., 2019). Critically, some of these studies link attitude to performance and understanding in general chemistry (Brandriet et al., 2011; Xu et al., 2013; Chan and Bauer, 2014). Using the ASCIv2, Brandriet and colleagues demonstrated a positive relationship between grades in general chemistry and changes in attitude over time, but did not determine a causal or predictive relationship (Brandriet et al., 2011). However, Xu and colleagues demonstrated that attitude contributes to predictions of chemistry achievement (alongside prior conceptual knowledge), and concluded that this evidence supports fostering positive attitude is important to improve students’ performance in general chemistry (Xu et al., 2013). Chan and Bauer further explored the relationship between attitude and performance, and found that affective characteristics (attitude included) were a useful predictor of at-risk students in the course (Chan and Bauer, 2014).
Despite these important findings linking attitude and performance in general chemistry education research, there have been few studies within the literature aimed at investigating attitudes specifically towards organic chemistry. The first of these studies is a task-specific study from Supasorn and colleagues identifying how pre-laboratory visualizations of organic extractions impacted student attitudes (Supasorn et al., 2008). In this work, the researchers developed a questionnaire, the Organic Extraction Simulation Questionnaire, validated the items on the questionnaire through expert review, and collected qualitative data with the questionnaire in the form of student comments (Supasorn et al., 2008). A second study investigated the impact of a flipped organic chemistry classroom on attitudes. Mooring and colleagues used the ASCIv2 to find that, in a flipped classroom, there was an increase in students’ perceptions of intellectual accessibility and emotional satisfaction in the course (Mooring et al., 2016). The researchers also administered a qualitative end-of-semester survey investigating the students’ feelings regarding the flipped classroom, which were coded as negative, positive, mixed, and neutral (Mooring et al., 2016). While this provided a thorough investigation into students’ attitudes towards a flipped classroom in organic chemistry, the focus was not on the subject of organic chemistry itself. Finally, a third study by Rocabado and colleagues investigated how the flipped classroom impacted Black female students, who began the organic chemistry course with lower attitude scores than their peers (Rocabado et al., 2019). The authors of this study did not find that the flipped classroom was enough of an intervention “to close the attitude gap for these students” (Rocabado et al., 2019). While these three studies investigate an aspect of attitude towards organic chemistry, each of them does so with a focus on a specific facet of the course – namely extractions or the impact of a flipped classroom on student attitude.
The authors of this manuscript could not find any studies which investigate attitude toward organic chemistry using a qualitative approach; previously conducted studies use questionnaires or inventories as their primary data source and only use student comments or follow-up surveys as a secondary data source. Given the evidence that emotions impact performance in organic chemistry, and attitude has impacted performance in general chemistry, exploring this gap in the literature is an important pathway to understand potential barriers to student success in organic chemistry. Specific insight into student attitudes regarding organic chemistry is needed to create appropriate interventions that can impact students’ meaningful learning experiences. This manuscript aims to address this gap by qualitatively investigating students’ attitudes towards organic chemistry.
The authors of this paper determined that the most apt definition of attitude within chemistry education research comes from Bauer, stating that attitudes are: “the tendency to approach or avoid—to react negatively or positively—to the subject or discipline of chemistry” and that this tendency may be expressed through belief, feelings, or behavior (Bauer, 2008). This definition of attitude captures the complex way that attitude can be expressed beyond the affective domain, but recognizes that these are still expressions of a general feeling towards the attitude object. To operationalize attitude, the authors incorporated the work of Xu and Lewis, who acknowledge that attitude has been conceptualized as a tripartite construct, but because behavioral components are less abstract than thinking and feeling domains, Xu and Lewis determined that a two-component theoretical framework consisting of cognition and affect was the most appropriate for investigating attitudes in the chemistry classroom setting (Xu and Lewis, 2011). Different aspects of attitude related to cognition identified by Xu and Lewis include the difficulty, challenge, complexity, and level of confusion the course presented, while aspects related to affect included the comfortability, satisfaction, pleasantness, and level of organization the students felt. This framework for attitude is less broad than the Bauer definition and does not seek to investigate students’ expressions of attitude in behavior, but focuses instead on students’ statements regarding thought and feeling.
In order to gain a deeper understanding of student attitudes in the organic chemistry setting, the authors used a combination of the Bauer definition and Xu and Lewis framework to design an instrument and interpret the results. The Attitudes Towards Organic Chemistry (ATOC) instrument consists of two parts, a qualitative portion and a quantitative portion. The qualitative portion gives space for students to describe their attitudes towards organic chemistry and what may be influencing those attitudes. These responses are characterized broadly by students’ tendency to react positively or negatively, in line with the Bauer definition of attitude, but aspects of the Xu and Lewis framework are present throughout students’ responses. The quantitative portion of the ATOC investigates specific cognitive and affective aspects of attitude in line with the Xu and Lewis framework. This manuscript focuses on the qualitative results only; the results of the quantitative portion will be reported separately.
Using the Xu and Lewis framework, a two-pronged approach to understanding students’ attitudes towards organic chemistry was employed. This approach consisted of creating an instrument, the Attitudes Towards Organic Chemistry (ATOC) instrument, with both a qualitative portion (focusing on how students describe their feelings towards learning organic chemistry), and a quantitative portion (focusing on what students think about organic chemistry). The present manuscript focuses on results from the qualitative portion of the instrument.
(1) How do students characterize their attitudes towards learning organic chemistry?
(2) What influences students’ attitudes towards learning organic chemistry?
Given the knowledge that identities can impact interpretation of data, steps were taken to fully preserve the credibility of the data generated by the ATOC instrument. This was done through using multiple coders from a variety of backgrounds, consensus meetings involving in-depth conversations regarding each keyword in coding, and a committee of experts to review the construction of the themes.
(1) “Describe, in your own words, how you feel about learning organic chemistry.”
(2) “What made you feel the way you do about organic chemistry?”
The inclusion of these two items, paired with follow-up interviews, was determined to be the best methodology to approach this topic, as a broad overview of students’ attitudes was desired. Follow-up interviews served the purpose of allowing the researchers to ask clarifying questions as needed (Deng et al., 2021). The ATOC also included questions regarding demographic information, including gender identity, racial identity, age, career aspirations, if the student had taken organic chemistry before, first-generation college student status, and if the student had any non-traditional aspects about their college experience (i.e., has dependents, works 40 hours a week, is financially self-supporting, is working an off-campus job). This demographic information can be found in Appendix 1.
For the analysis of Item Two, “Why do you feel the way you do about organic chemistry?”, student responses were inductively coded using the constant comparative method by three individual and independent coders (Corbin and Strauss, 2008). Similar codes were combined using thematic analysis to construct themes (Corbin and Strauss, 2008). These codes and themes were refined throughout the course of data collection. At the close of analysis of the data from OC1 and OC2 for both semesters of the study, no new themes were apparent.
These interviews were then transcribed and reviewed for any mis-transcriptions. For analysis, close attention was paid to statements made by the student that had been flagged by coders as neutral, with the interviewer clarifying whether the student viewed these statements as negative or positive. A variety of responses provided evidence for the credibility of the researchers’ interpretation of these items as neutral. For example, when Jacky (OC2) was asked to clarify if they meant the phrase “not a fan” as a negative, positive, or neutral statement they said: “I feel like it's neutral only because, I did well and I liked, I didn't really mind chem one and two, but it wasn't like, um, my favorite class or anything, like ‘yay chemistry!’ I was just, kind of like, you know, go to class do good, but it wasn't something that I was really excited about or anything.” On the other hand, when Ale (OC1) was asked to categorize their statement of “not a fan,” their response was: “So I’d say definitely more negative just because of how- how much time it takes me and how I feel, uh, I just don't like the not knowing that if I do good or not on certain stuff. With chemistry it's kind of 50/50 like I’ll think I know what I’m doing, but then, when the test comes I may forget or I’ll find out if I really did not know what I was doing.” The difference in these students’ intentions with the same statement lends credence to their coding as neutral. Similar phenomena were observed with the other phrases that were deemed difficult to initially categorize.
Code | Example quotes |
---|---|
Positive | “I enjoy learning organic chemistry.” – Taylor (OC1) |
“I’m excited to learn organic chemistry.” – Jordan (OC2) | |
Negative | “Slight dread” – Erin (OC1) |
“I absolutely hate it.” – Pat (OC2) | |
Neutral | “I feel like our experiences with learning organic chemistry depend on the professor. Right now, I am content with how I am learning organic chemistry because my professor provides review questions after every class and also a practice test before the exam so we know what to expect.” – Mel (OC1) |
“Indifferent” – Kay (OC2) | |
Blended (Positive/Negative) | “Pretty good but nervous for the difficulty of it.” – Rene (OC1) |
“Excited but somewhat nervous/anxious.” – Blake (OC2) | |
Blended (Positive/Neutral) | “While it may take time to grasp some concepts, I find it exciting to learn about organic chemistry.” – Bene (OC1) |
“I find the content slightly interestingbut I’m mainly taking it to prepare for the MCAT.” – Yesi (OC2) | |
Blended (Negative/Neutral) | “Required but not happy about it.As a biology major, I’d rather not do chemistry at all.” – Cameo (OC1) |
“It's not something I enjoy, I do it because I have to in order to pursue my career.” – Jay (OC2) | |
Blended (Positive/Negative/Neutral) | “Organic chemistry is an intricate and challenging subject. It can at times feel vast or intimidating, but the way it helps explain the nature of our universe is awesome.” – Val (OC1) |
“It's interesting. Sometimes scary, but doable with the right teachers.” – El (OC2) |
Positive statements consisted of interest, excitement, or other positive attitudes towards organic chemistry. Examples of positive responses are given by Taylor (OC1) and Jordan (OC2). Negative statements consisted of anxiety, dread, nervousness, or other generally negative attitudes towards organic chemistry, with examples of negative responses given by Erin (OC1) and Pat (OC2). Neutral statements generally consisted of students commenting that they are enrolled in the course for their career, that the material is manageable or doable, or that they feel fine, content, or neutral. Examples of neutral responses are given by Mel (OC1) and Kay (OC2). Blended responses consisted of multiple attitudes towards organic chemistry and are coded with a distinction of which attitudes (positive, negative, or neutral) are present in the statement. For example, El (OC2) gives a blended response comprised of positive, negative, and neutral attitudes. In El's response, “interesting” is coded as positive, while “sometimes scary” is coded as negative; El's final statement “doable with the right teachers” is coded as neutral, creating the overall response code of blended (positive, neutral, negative). Many of the blended responses included comments that consisted of a sense of excitement or curiosity, tempered by a sense of intimidation or nervousness.
Regarding the prevalence of codes (shown in Fig. 3), OC1 student responses were most commonly positive, negative, and blended, though all types of responses were present. For both on-sequence and off-sequence OC1 students, there were already a wide range of attitudes expressed towards the subject, even though they had not yet interacted with the course material itself at the time of data collection. After at least one semester of organic chemistry, OC2 students also gave a wide range of responses, though it was noted that the off-sequence OC2 students responded with overwhelmingly negative comments. These results suggest that many undergraduate students are arriving in organic chemistry with at least a partially negative attitude towards learning the subject, despite having limited interaction with the content. Interacting with the subject matter may change these attitudes, and a future longitudinal study following the same cohort would provide evidence on how students’ attitudes could change.
Overall, results from Item One provide evidence that student attitudes are potentially shaped by factors outside of the classroom when they enroll in organic chemistry courses. While the prevalence of student responses gives some insight, it is worthwhile to note that in the context of qualitative research methods, each student response is valued within the data pool despite how often that response is expressed. Further, these percentages may be impacted by limitations in participant recruitment and attrition rates, explored further in the limitations section.
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Fig. 4 An overview of themes and subthemes identified in the data generated in response to Item Two, “What made you feel the way you do about organic chemistry?” |
The finding that reputation influences attitude, in conjunction specifically with the OC1 negative responses to Item One, provides evidence that students have developed an opinion of organic chemistry based on factors outside the classroom before they encounter the material. This suggests that students’ attitudes towards the course are shaped prior to their start in the course and they are specifically influenced regarding the difficulty of the course. This is also concerning, as anxiety has been shown to have an inverse relationship with performance in organic chemistry, so the focus of students on difficulty of the course prior to taking it may be negatively impacting performance (Gibbons et al., 2018).
The emphasis that student responses placed on educators indicates that students’ attitudes are shaped by the educators themselves, rather than solely the content of the course that the educators are presenting. This further reinforces the finding from Theme 1 that factors outside of the course material are impacting students’ attitudes towards the course.
The subthemes that were identified within this theme (outlined in Fig. 4) include: General Experiences, Material and Content, Impacts of COVID-19 on Classroom Experience, Experiences in Previous Organic Chemistry Courses, Experiences in the Laboratory, and Grades.
Overall, student responses related to the course content and material within each of these subthemes indicate that students’ attitudes are impacted by the course material, despite initial attitudes being formed as a result of other influences. As with Theme 1 (Reputation), students’ comments within Theme 3 are in line with aspects of attitude identified by Xu and Lewis (Xu and Lewis, 2011). However, unlike responses in Theme 1, these comments seemed to incorporate all of the cognitive aspects of attitude, as well as some affective aspects (Xu & Lewis, 2011). In many of the subthemes, students made comments related to the difficulty, the chaotic or unorganized nature, the challenging pace, the complexity, feelings of frustration, and/or the level of confusion the course presented, while the comments in Theme 1 (Reputation) focused primarily on the difficulty of the class. This evidence suggests that students’ attitudes may become shaped by a more complex interaction of influences as they progress through the course.
These responses indicate that students’ organic chemistry experiences may be shaped by their general chemistry experiences, and that may influence their attitudes towards learning organic chemistry. This further supports the idea that student attitudes towards organic chemistry may be shaped by factors outside of the organic chemistry course content, as evidenced in Theme 1 (Reputation) and Theme 2 (Educators). However, the diminished rate of general chemistry-focused student comments in the data collection from OC2 supports the finding that these experiences may have less of an impact on students’ attitudes as the students spend more time with the organic chemistry material, also noted in the results from Theme 3 (Material and Content).
The student responses within Theme 5, like Theme 3, represent aspects of attitude as presented by Xu and Lewis. Students in this theme talk about pleasantness or enjoyment of the subject or science in general, satisfaction in problem solving, and the difficulty of the subject. Particularly interesting is Subtheme 5.3 which revolves around enjoyment, as enjoyment has been shown to be correlated with performance in organic chemistry (Gibbons et al., 2018). Ultimately, the personal nature of the responses within each of these subthemes imply that each student will have a unique perspective based on their identities that may impact their attitudes towards organic chemistry as they move throughout the course sequence.
These findings further give insight into the process of meaningful learning for organic chemistry students. For meaningful learning to occur, the material itself must be meaningful, students must have relevant prior knowledge to connect new information to, and students must choose to incorporate that new information into their existing frameworks (Novak, 1977, 1998). Negative attitudes towards organic chemistry may be inhibiting the process of meaningful learning by: (1) hindering students from choosing to incorporate new information into their existing knowledge structures and (2) contributing to the belief that organic chemistry is not relevant to the knowledge that they currently hold. However, the findings of this study indicate that students do not ubiquitously hold negative attitudes towards organic chemistry, suggesting that students’ attitudes can shift after interaction with the course content.
The findings that students hold negative attitudes prior to the course, in combination with Theme 1 (Reputation), emphasizes two factors that are strongly interwoven and were found previously to underlie the construct of attitudes – anxiety and intellectual accessibility (Bauer, 2008). Responses to Item Two show that students may be experiencing anxiety based on their beliefs about the intellectual accessibility of the course, beliefs that may have been developed based on reputation prior to their experience with the material itself.
The findings reported herein suggest that future research studies should be intentionally designed to investigate attitudes held by students about organic chemistry, as a large portion of students hold negative attitudes towards the course and attitudes have been previously found to impact performance (Osborne et al., 2003). Thus, determining how attitudes impact performance in organic chemistry would be a worthwhile inquiry. Future research studies should also determine how attitudes shift over the organic chemistry course sequence to better understand external influences that may cause students’ attitudes to change, as well as to develop interventions that target improving students’ attitudes towards learning course content. One method of developing interventions could revolve around each of the five thematic areas identified in the analysis of data from Item Two. For example, an intervention targeting the information students hear about organic chemistry before they arrive to the course would potentially relate to Theme 1 (Reputation) in an aim to improve attitude upon arrival to the course and reduce possible anxiety associated with these attitudes. Future research could explore the impacts of this type of intervention on students’ attitudes and performance without changing the existing course structure. Another example of an intervention could focus on the findings in Theme 5 (Individual Experiences), such as an assignment that works towards elucidating the relevancy of the course to students’ prospective career path and identifying the impact that may have on learning experiences and ultimately performance. Finally, findings from Theme 4 (Individual Experiences) provide further evidence that other constructs within the affective domain, such as self-efficacy and interest, are intertwined with attitudes, as has been noted in previous investigations (Osborne et al., 2003; Bauer, 2005, 2008; Xu and Lewis, 2011). Future research should investigate the possibility that interventions targeting additional aspects of student affect in organic chemistry might simultaneously contribute to an improvement in attitude as well.
The findings from this research study also posit several implications for teaching organic chemistry. While Theme 2 (Educators) most directly relates to teaching, there are several ways instructors can incorporate practices directly into their classrooms based on evidence from this research study. Results suggest that educators should assess their own impact on the classroom, as this is potentially the sole theme that educators have control over when they are not given institutional freedom with curriculum or other classroom considerations. Educators can reflect and/or use a tool such as the ATOC instrument to assess any potential effects they may see in the classroom. This can be difficult to do objectively, as students may not feel inclined to be honest or may be very subjective themselves; however, an anonymous survey could help elucidate students’ perceptions of educator influence. A further beneficial practice may be to specifically ask students how the instructor can help to have a positive impact on them, using an anonymous approach.
Another factor that students cited as influencing their attitudes towards learning organic chemistry is the classroom experience. Findings from this work suggest that organic chemistry educators should assess how the course structure may be impacting students’ attitudes towards the course. The pace and content were often an area that students mentioned, which may mean that changes need to be made beyond the individual classroom, such as assessing what material is standardized and considering a shift from breadth of material to depth. Such a shift may aid in negating the student perception that they are being required to memorize excessive amounts of material, as well as potentially allowing more time to be devoted to a deeper understanding of the content. The need for this type of curricular reform has already been recognized, and corresponding curricula have been developed for general chemistry and organic chemistry, such as the Chemical Thinking curriculum, the Chemistry, Life, the Universe and Everything (CLUE) curriculum, and the Organic Chemistry, Life, the Universe and Everything (OCLUE) curriculum (Talanquer and Pollard, 2010, 2017; Cooper et al., 2019).
De-emphasizing the breadth of material covered in organic chemistry could allow more time for interventions which target the affective domain. For example, the student comments in Theme 5 (Individual Experiences) indicate the importance of context-based learning and the inclusion of content that improves interest or enjoyment of the subject based on students’ pre-existing knowledge or interests, a founding principle of responsive teaching (Robertson et al., 2016). Instructors hoping to improve an organic chemistry course may want to identify specific things that interest their students (such as hobbies or career paths) and focus on providing organic chemistry examples within those contexts. The necessity of incorporating this type of approach to chemistry education is well documented, with situated cognition and systems thinking emerging as possible methods for bringing context-based learning into the classroom (Bodner and Orgill, 2007; Orgill et al., 2019). Unfortunately, embedding direct context-based and relevant examples into each unit of coursework, or assigning context-based examples as homework, is often not a realistic/practical option due to the volume of material that is covered in a semester. Shifting the emphasis from breadth to depth could give time to improve in this area as well.
Finally, findings from this study related to the impact of general chemistry experiences on student attitudes towards learning organic chemistry suggest that non-organic chemistry educators may impact students’ attitudes towards organic chemistry. Educators who encounter students before they enter the organic chemistry classroom should recognize their potential influence on students’ attitudes within other course contexts.
Though qualitative data is more robust than quantitative data, there are also limitations in collecting qualitative data via an instrument. Clarifying follow-up questions could not be asked when students posited neutral or vague statements, and in some instances, best judgements had to be made by the researchers. This is exemplified by the complexity of the words “challenged,” “difficult,” and “time consuming” when coding responses, with students using these words in negative, positive, and/or neutral ways depending on the context surrounding the word. In order to mitigate this limitation, the authors selected the best approach in the coding process of these words/phrases through conducting follow-up, response process interviews to better understand students’ connotations related to specific statements. However, because the response process interviews were limited in number, the authors are aware that this inherently means that there are populations and viewpoints within the class that may not have been represented, and some of these vague statements may have been interpreted in a way that they were not intended. This is a natural challenge with any form of qualitative data, and multiple coders, follow-up interviews, and consensus meetings were used to preserve the credibility of the data analysis.
Recruitment of student participants and obtaining a representative sample was an additional limitation in this study. With low response rates from online lecture courses in Fall 2020, recruitment was shifted into the laboratory course in Spring 2021, yielding much higher response rates. These response rates may have impacted the overall percentages for student responses to Item One. While these percentages still do give some insight, it is possible students with a more negative attitude did not persist in the course sequence, therefore skewing overall percentages. Further, it is not possible to know how well this research study sample represented the total students enrolled in the course, as the demographic information of the course was not available to the authors. Another issue in recruitment of students resulted from COVID-19. To accommodate physical distancing practices, the laboratory classes were on a schedule which had only half of each section attend in-person each week, creating an alternating/rotating A-B schedule. This meant the whole class was not sampled at the same timepoint in the semester, providing a limitation in the data collection approach. Another limitation of the study was inherently created by the switch to remote learning due to COVID-19; all data in this study was collected from students who were taking the organic chemistry course online, which differs from the experiences that most organic chemistry students at the institution in this study have had in the past or may have in the future. More work should be done regarding future collection of data in subsequent semesters to help minimize this potential limitation.
Finally, the wording of Item Two presented a limitation in this research study, where the attitude object of the item was stated as “organic chemistry” rather than “learning organic chemistry.” To determine the impact of the insertion of the word “learning”, students in the follow-up, response process interviews were asked if their response to Item Two would be different if the question was phrased “learning organic chemistry.” Results from these interviews indicated that students’ responses would not be changed by altering the attitude object in this way; future research could potentially probe this further.
What is your intended career path?
n | OC1 F20 (%) | OC1 S21 (%) | OC2 F20 (%) | OC2 S21 (%) |
---|---|---|---|---|
87 | 145 | 24 | 304 | |
Academia | 3.45 | 4.14 | 0.00 | 3.95 |
Forensics | 5.75 | 4.83 | 8.33 | 0.66 |
Industry | 10.34 | 8.28 | 16.67 | 8.88 |
Medical | 59.77 | 61.38 | 50.00 | 70.72 |
Unsure | 4.60 | 7.59 | 12.50 | 6.91 |
Other | 1.15 | 8.28 | 8.33 | 6.25 |
N/A | 14.94 | 5.52 | 4.17 | 2.63 |
What is your gender identity?
n | OC1 F20 (%) | OC1 S21 (%) | OC2 F20 (%) | OC2 S21 (%) |
---|---|---|---|---|
87 | 145 | 24 | 304 | |
Agender | 1.15 | 0.69 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
Bigender | 1.15 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
Female | 33.33 | 68.28 | 50.00 | 62.50 |
Gender Fluid | 0.00 | 0.69 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
Male | 24.14 | 22.07 | 41.67 | 31.91 |
Nonbinary | 0.00 | 1.38 | 0.00 | 1.32 |
N/A | 17.24 | 6.90 | 8.33 | 4.28 |
What is your racial identity?
n | OC1 F20 (%) | OC1 S21 (%) | OC2 F20 (%) | OC2 S21 (%) |
---|---|---|---|---|
87 | 145 | 24 | 304 | |
Asian/Pacific Islander | 16.09 | 14.48 | 12.50 | 19.74 |
Black | 11.49 | 24.14 | 16.67 | 14.14 |
Latino | 17.24 | 20.00 | 16.67 | 24.01 |
Middle Eastern | 5.75 | 2.07 | 4.17 | 3.29 |
Native American/Alaskan | 1.15 | 1.38 | 0.00 | 2.96 |
White | 47.13 | 40.69 | 54.17 | 45.07 |
Unknown | 0.00 | 0.00 | 4.17 | 0.00 |
Prefer not to answer | 0.00 | 2.76 | 4.17 | 1.64 |
What is your age?
n | OC1 F20 (%) | OC1 S21 (%) | OC2 F20 (%) | OC2 S21 (%) |
---|---|---|---|---|
87 | 145 | 24 | 304 | |
18–21 | 62.07 | 72.41 | 37.50 | 74.67 |
22–30 | 21.84 | 19.31 | 45.83 | 20.39 |
31–45 | 1.15 | 2.07 | 8.33 | 2.30 |
46+ | 0.00 | 0.69 | 4.17 | 0.00 |
N/A | 14.94 | 5.52 | 4.17 | 2.63 |
Other aspects of student experience:
Note: percentages represent the number of students who responded to that question with a “Yes.”
n | OC1 F20 (%) | OC1 S21 (%) | OC2 F20 (%) | OC2 S21 (%) |
---|---|---|---|---|
87 | 145 | 24 | 304 | |
Are you first generation? (neither parent has completed a four year degree) | 31.03 | 40.69 | 33.33 | 37.83 |
Do you have dependents? | 16.09 | 11.72 | 20.83 | 12.83 |
Are you enrolled in less than 12 hours of courses? | 10.34 | 8.97 | 12.50 | 6.91 |
Do you work 40+ hours a week? | 14.94 | 13.79 | 29.17 | 13.16 |
Are you financially self-supporting? | 26.44 | 26.90 | 50.00 | 28.95 |
Do you work a job off campus? | 78.16 | 82.07 | 95.83 | 90.46 |
Are you a STEM major? | 78.16 | 82.07 | 95.83 | 90.46 |
Have you taken OC1 or OC2 or the equivalent before? | 12.64 | 20.00 | 91.67 | 91.78 |
Themes | Description | Subthemes | Representative quote |
---|---|---|---|
Theme 1 reputation | Characterized by students referencing what they have heard from others about organic chemistry | N/A | “Everyone I have talk to says this class is difficult” – Pedro (OC1) |
Theme 2 educators | Characterized by students mentioning their organic chemistry instructors, general chemistry instructors, teaching assistants, tutors, high school instructors | N/A | “I had a really good general chemistry professor and she made me like and understand chemistry” – Eronia (OC1) |
Theme 3 experiences with organic chemistry | Characterized by students describing how the course itself impacts their attitudes toward organic chemistry | 3.1: General experiences in the organic chemistry classroom | “Organic chemistry is a difficult subject and not very interesting, but I need it to graduate.” – Abbey (OC1) |
3.2: Material and content | “Overwhelming amount of information” – Andy (OC2) | ||
3.3: Impacts of COVID-19 | “Making good grade and understanding the concept” – Harper (OC2) | ||
3.4: Experiences in previous organic classrooms | “I already took a semester and it was really tough, I hated it” – Ari (OC2) | ||
3.5: Experiences in the laboratory | |||
3.6: Grades | |||
Theme 4 experiences with introductory chemistry | Characterized by students mentioning their introductory chemistry experiences | N/A | “I had a really hard time in Gen Chem 2 because of the speed and advanced math, as I learn math at a slower pace. I’m hoping Organic Chemistry is better.” – James (OC1) |
Theme 5 individual experiences | Characterized by students sharing personal stories or experiences that are independent of their course experience | 5.1: Impact on career path | “Organic Chemistry is a required course for Pre-veterinarian so I need to understand this course better if I want to achieve what I dream.” – Miriam (OC1) |
5.2: Self-belief | |||
5.3: Interest and enjoyment |
Footnotes |
† This response was also coded under Subtheme 5.3 (Interest and Enjoyment). |
‡ This response was also coded under Theme 1 (Reputation). |
§ This response was also coded under Theme 5.1 (Impact on Career Path) and Theme 5.3 (Interest and Enjoyment). |
¶ This response was also coded under Theme 2 (Educators). |
|| This response was also coded under Theme 3.2 (Material and Content). |
** This response was also coded under Theme 3.2 (Material and Content). |
†† This response was also coded under Theme 2 (Educators). |
‡‡ This response was also coded under Theme 2 (Educators). |
§§ This response was also coded under Theme 3.1 (General Experiences). |
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