Investigating changes in students’ attitudes towards organic chemistry: a longitudinal study

Abstract

Though attitude has been linked to student performance in general chemistry, it is under-researched with relation to organic chemistry. The previous research that has been conducted on students’ attitudes towards organic chemistry has primarily occurred via quantitative approaches, with a current lack of qualitative approaches used to give robust insight into student experiences in organic chemistry. This work, a longitudinal study, builds on a previous qualitative study which investigated students’ attitudes using the Attitude Toward Organic Chemistry (ATOC) instrument. The aim of this study is to investigate how students’ attitudes towards organic chemistry change over time throughout the organic chemistry course sequence. Findings from two cohorts demonstrate that both students’ attitudes and the influences on those attitudes change over time in the course.

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Introduction

Though organic chemistry is foundational for many careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), the course has high drop/fail/withdrawal rates and a notorious reputation (Grove et al., 2008, Collini et al., 2023). Even those students who persist and perform well on assessments in the course may not have a robust understanding of key concepts; a review of evidence shows that students may be relying on memorization to complete tasks without a grasp of the underlying chemical principles (Graulich, 2015). For students to meaningfully learn organic chemistry, it is important to identify barriers that may be inhibiting them from gaining a robust understanding. This investigation is urgent, especially because poor course design disproportionately impacts groups who have been historically excluded from participating in STEM (National Academies Press, 2011; Roberts et al., 2018). Improving the organic chemistry course sequence is necessary to create opportunities for meaningful learning experiences, to equip the upcoming workforce, and diversify STEM.

The majority of research conducted to understand and improve students’ learning experiences in organic chemistry has focused on cognition (Graulich, 2015; Flaherty, 2020). While cognition is a key aspect, students’ learning experiences are not exclusively cognitive processes (Ausubel, 1963; Novak, 1977, 1998; Bretz, 2001). To gain a more complete understanding of the shortcomings in organic chemistry courses, focus should also be placed on identifying and addressing issues in other aspects of students’ learning experiences (Flaherty, 2020).

Within chemistry education research, attitude is the most widely studied construct in the affective domain and has been linked with success in general chemistry (Dalgety et al., 2003; Bauer, 2005; Brandriet et al., 2011; Xu and Lewis, 2011; Flaherty, 2020). However, few studies have investigated the construct of attitude in organic chemistry courses (Mooring et al., 2016; Rocabado et al., 2019; Flaherty, 2020; Collini et al., 2023). Mooring and colleagues investigated how the flipped classroom impacted students’ attitudes in organic chemistry, finding that there was a positive impact (Mooring et al., 2016). A follow-up study attempted to determine if the flipped classroom had an equitable effect when looking at the “attitude gap” between Black female students and their peers in organic chemistry; the researchers found that though there was improvement, this specific classroom intervention was not enough to close that affective “gap” (Rocabado et al., 2019). Additionally, the Attitudes Towards Organic Chemistry (ATOC) instrument was designed to gain a qualitative and quantitative understanding of the attitudes undergraduate students hold towards organic chemistry (Collini et al., 2023). Initial findings generated from this instrument indicated that students’ attitudes in organic chemistry range from positive to negative, in contrast to the pervasive, axiomatic idea that students primarily hold negative attitudes towards the course, and identified influences which shape students’ attitudes both within and external to the course, such as the reputation of organic chemistry coursework, experience in introductory chemistry, experiences in their organic chemistry class, and the student's individual experiences (Collini et al., 2023). Based on these findings, the authors suggested potential avenues for change in the course based on the factors that influence students attitudes such as addressing the reputation of the course, increasing relevancy to students, and de-emphasizing breadth of material (Collini et al., 2023). However, this cross-sectional study lacks insight into how and why students’ attitudes toward organic chemistry changed over time, information which would improve the design of affective interventions which are meant to target student attitudes towards the organic chemistry course sequence.

To address this, several postsecondary chemistry education research studies follow a longitudinal design to investigate both cognitive and affective domains, giving insight into the relationship between affect and other areas of student learning, including cognition and course outcomes (White and Arzi, 2005; Dalgety and Coll, 2006; National Research Council, 2012; Lewis, 2014; Galloway and Bretz, 2015; Crandell et al., 2019; Gibbons and Raker, 2019; Atkinson and Bretz, 2021; Busby and Harshman, 2021). If meaningful change is to be made in the organic chemistry course sequence, it is critical to include longitudinal studies in organic chemistry education research; they are needed to gauge the long-term effects of instructional methods and deepen our understanding of how students’ experiences impact both affective and cognitive aspects of learning over time (National Research Council, 2012). Specifically, understanding how organic chemistry students’ attitudes change longitudinally is necessary to identify and rectify those aspects of the course that may be contributing to a shift towards more negative attitudes, potentially detracting from their learning.

Theoretical frameworks

Attitude is a construct which has been operationalized in a variety of ways in chemistry education research. It is well-situated within Novak's Theory of Human Constructivism, which stipulates that the affective (feeling), cognitive (thinking), and psychomotor (acting) domains all play a role in student learning experiences (Ausubel, 1963; Novak, 1977, 1998; Bretz, 2001). Attitude has been previously defined at the intersection of cognition, emotion, and behavior; these definitions range from exploring the interplay of all three domains to focusing on only one or two domains (Dalgety et al., 2003; Bauer, 2008; Xu and Lewis, 2011; Flaherty, 2020). For example, Dalgety used a one-component definition of attitude which related the construct to student behavior in order to more effectively investigate students’ behaviors regarding enrollment and persistence in chemistry (Dalgety et al., 2003). Xu and Lewis conceptualized attitude with a two-component framework, including emotions (what students “feel” about an attitude object) and cognition (what students “think” about the attitude object) (Xu and Lewis, 2011). Bauer defines attitude as “the tendency to approach or avoid, to react positively or negatively towards the subject of chemistry,” going on to incorporate all three domains by stating that these “tendencies may be exhibited through expressions about belief, about feelings, and about behavioral intentions regarding a particular object” (Bauer, 2008). For the development of the Attitude Towards Organic Chemistry (ATOC) instrument, a combination of the Bauer and Xu and Lewis conceptualizations of attitude were used (Collini et al., 2023).

This longitudinal research study uses data from the qualitative items of the Attitudes Towards Organic Chemistry (ATOC) instrument, asking students to describe their feelings towards organic chemistry and to identify what influenced them to feel as they did. This study was guided by the following two research questions:

1. How do students’ attitudes towards organic chemistry change over time?

2. What influences impact students’ attitudes as they change?

Methods

For this study, the ATOC was administered longitudinally to two cohorts throughout their time in the organic chemistry course sequence. Although the ATOC is an instrument that collects both quantitative and qualitative data, the authors of this manuscript found insufficient evidence to support the use of the quantitative items on the ATOC in second-semester organic chemistry; thus, the quantitative data collected throughout the timeline of this research was deemed inappropriate for use in a longitudinal study (Collini et al., 2023). This manuscript focuses solely on longitudinal data from the qualitative items in the ATOC, which have previously been shown to generate robust data regarding students’ attitudes towards organic chemistry (Collini et al., 2023). Those qualitative items are:

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?”

As the ATOC is intended to be a widely-distributed survey, these open-response items were included to gain insight into a variety of students’ perspectives at each of the timepoints, rather than conducting in-depth interviews with a smaller, less comprehensive group of students throughout the course sequence. While this gave the benefit of many different students’ perspectives, it also meant that no member checking or follow-up questions could be incorporated, limiting our understanding of each student's perspective. The choice to prioritize breadth over depth in the design of the ATOC is an inherent limitation in many broadly-scoped surveys, both qualitative and quantitative.

Data collection

All students enrolled in first-semester organic chemistry (OC1) and second-semester organic chemistry (OC2) courses at a large, public, research university in the state of Texas were invited to participate in the study. The university where this survey was administered was designated a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) in the same year that the study began. The organic chemistry courses at the university were primarily lecture-based courses ranging from 100–200 students per section, using a functional groups curricular approach. Each section had one graduate student teaching assistant assigned, although the roles and involvement of the teaching assistant were solely up to the discretion of the instructor of record. In the 2020–2021 school year, the majority of the classes were taught online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The instrument was administered digitally using Qualtrics (Qualtrics XM – Experience Management Software, n.d.) on students’ personal devices in their laboratory section, prior to the start of the experiment for that day. Each student was asked to provide their student identifier in order to track the students longitudinally throughout the study. Before data collection began, approval was obtained by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the institution of study; each time the survey was administered, students were given the opportunity to review information about the study and provide informed consent to participate. To maintain anonymity, student responses were de-identified, and participant numbers were randomly assigned to the participants. The ATOC instrument was administered longitudinally in the first and last weeks of the organic chemistry laboratory sections for OC1 and OC2. The instrument was administered to two cohorts (Fig. 1). Cohort One began OC1 in Fall 2020 and completed OC2 in Spring 2021 (considered to be on-sequence), and Cohort Two began OC1 in Spring 2021 and completed OC2 in Fall 2021 (considered to be off-sequence).

Fig. 1 An overview of the data collection timeline and sample sizes (N) for Cohort One (on-sequence) and Cohort Two (off-sequence). To identify longitudinal participants, the responses from Pre OC1 and Post OC2 were compared to determine which participants gave responses at both timepoints. The students who responded at both timepoints were then compared to Post OC1 and Pre OC2, to determine who had responded to all timepoints. Because Post OC1 (shown in light gray boxes) was the smallest and most limiting timepoint for both data sets, very few participants were found who responded to all four timepoints. Thus, to maintain a larger longitudinal participant pool, the Post OC1 timepoint was eliminated for both cohorts, and students who participated in Pre OC1, Pre OC2, and Post OC2 (all shown in blue boxes) were included in the longitudinal study. After inclusion of participants was finalized, the final sample size for Cohort One in the context of this longitudinal study was N = 17, while Cohort Two contained a total sample size of N = 4.

Limitations of data collection due to COVID-19

In this study, data collection was limited to one university over the course of 18 months during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, it is important to consider that these findings are limited and may be unique to the time and place in which the study was conducted. Every effort should be made by the reader to determine in what ways the findings here are generalizable to their relevant context.

A tangible impact of the pandemic during data collection was a change in location of data collection, which in turn reduced participation of students. Data from the first semester of the study (Fall 2020) was collected in the virtual classroom rather than in-person, resulting in very low response rates. As a result, data collection was shifted to occur during in-person organic chemistry laboratory sections. Altering the method of data collection mid-study is not ideal but was necessary for this study to continue. This limitation is reflected in the number of student responses at different timepoints; Post OC1 data collection for Cohort One had so few student responses that this timepoint could not be included in the longitudinal study. Although these limitations reduced the number of students who could be tracked longitudinally, analysis yielded valuable insights to be gained for the chemistry education research community and organic chemistry educators.

A further limitation of data collection due to the pandemic was that labs were run on an A-day, B-day alternating/rotating sequence; thus, the instrument was administered to students within different weeks, depending on their laboratory section enrollment. Occasionally, students’ first in-person lab occurred later in the semester than was desirable for the pre-semester data collection, and their last in-person lab occurred earlier in the semester than was desirable for the post-semester data collection. Finally, due to COVID-19, there were many more student absences than typical in a semester, which severely limited the data collection and the number of participants in the study.

Finally, in any longitudinal study that investigates a course sequence with a high rate of attrition, there will be a natural sample size limitation. Ultimately, only students that were successful in OC1, enrolled in OC2, and then persisted to the end of OC2 were eligible to participate in this longitudinal study that compares their initial attitudes with their end-of-sequence attitudes. A natural consequence of this is that those students who did not persist to the end of OC2 were not included in this longitudinal study.

Acknowledgements of context and positionality

Before we describe our methods of data analysis, the authors of this manuscript would like to call attention to the fact that all research, qualitative and quantitative, has embedded measures of subjectivity based on systemic oppression and individual biases; research studies reflect the context in which they were designed and conducted (Foote and Gau Bartell, 2011; Garcia et al., 2018; Gillborn et al., 2018; Fuentes, 2023). The context of this study was during the COVID-19 pandemic at a historically white university in the southern United States, which became a Hispanic-Serving Institution during the course of this study. These historical and sociocultural contexts, including power dynamics around race and gender, inevitably impact chemistry classrooms as a whole and the design, analysis, and the findings of this study (National Academies Press, 2011; Roberts et al., 2018; Fuentes, 2023).

We wish to elaborate on the positionality of the researchers who led the design of the study, collected data, conducted analyses, and drew conclusions. We choose to share this information because we understand that sharing the researchers’ perspectives and contexts allows our readers to critically evaluate who the research is done by and for. It prompts reflection on how our identities impact the reviewed literature and citation choices, the interactions with participants and thus data collection, the analysis and interpretations of the data, and the conclusions and implications of this work.

MAC. I acknowledge that the identities, perspectives, and biases that I held while conducting this study impacted the study. My perspective as a white, middle class, cis-gendered woman, who has lived primarily in North Texas throughout my life inevitably shapes the way I perceive the world and my work, including research and teaching. Throughout the time I worked on this study, many of my identities and much of my understanding shifted. When I first began contemplating this study I was an organic chemistry graduate student employed as a teaching assistant, reflecting on my own recent experiences as an undergraduate organic chemistry student. I then became a chemistry education research graduate student, an instructor of record in an organic chemistry classroom, and eventually graduated to become an organic chemistry instructor and postdoctoral researcher. Throughout the study I also grew in my understanding of my privilege, and what it means to do research in a system that was built by and for those already in power, and how my identities impact that research.

KM. I avow all perspectives defined by the intersectionality of my view as a Hispanic, cis-gendered, heterosexual woman. My experiences as a non-traditional, minority, pre-medical student undoubtedly shaped the way I interpreted results compared to my counterparts. Moreover, my gravitation towards chemistry, specifically my personal enjoyment of organic chemistry and involvement in the chemistry department during undergrad, introduced bias when analyzing data from those who struggled with the subject. These sentiments that are embedded within my identities ultimately impacted my interpretations during analysis.

RW. The perspective that I bring to research endeavors is shaped by my experiences as a white, cis-gendered, heterosexual woman who was raised middle class, with a tradition of higher education in my family. In addition, I also bring the experience and perspective of a non-traditional student attending college, as I was older than my peers, already married with a child, and continued adding to our family throughout my own college and graduate education. I acknowledge that my perspectives arise from a place of privilege and social advantage, as well as the impact that my identities have upon this research process and interpretation of results.

MBA. My research perspective is directly informed by my experiences as a white, heterosexual, cis-gendered woman and first-generation student who grew up in a rural, socioeconomically disadvantaged area in the southern United States. I acknowledge my own privileges and social advantages and the impact of those identities on this work. I am currently a pre-tenure Assistant Professor of Chemistry at a large, research-intensive university and Hispanic-Serving Institution, who teaches both undergraduate and graduate chemistry courses. Additionally, I lead a team of undergraduate and graduate students conducting chemistry education research – meaning that my roles as an educator and researcher within the chemistry education system offer both insight and biases into students’ perspectives. I recognize that my own perspectives are directly informed by both my personal experiences as well as my current role within academia, and I acknowledge that my identity and positionality in a position of power and privilege impact both the research process and interpretation of results within this work.

Data analysis

To ensure ethical analysis of the data, all responses from students who did not provide consent for their data to be used in the study and/or were under the age of 18 years were removed from the data set. Once these data points were removed, students who had participated at the three different timepoints included in the study were identified for longitudinal analysis (Fig. 1). Following these steps, the remaining participant number for longitudinal analysis was N = 17 for Cohort One and N = 4 for Cohort Two. The self-described demographics making up Cohort One consisted of 13 females, four males, six Asian students, three white students, two Black students, one Middle Eastern student, one Latine student, two students who identified as both white and Asian, one student who identified as both white and Latino, and one student who identified as both Black and Native American. No students within Cohort One reported previously taking organic chemistry, and six identified as non-traditional students, having either dependents or being financially self-supporting. Sixteen students in Cohort One identified as STEM majors. Cohort Two consisted of four females, one white student, two Latine students, and one student who identified as both white and Latine. Two students within Cohort Two had previously taken organic chemistry, and two were considered non-traditional students who were financially self-supporting. All students in Cohort Two identified as STEM majors.

All responses for all timepoints from Cohort One and Cohort Two were then randomized and anonymized. This was done to ensure that each response was coded independently (i.e., that a response at one timepoint from a participant would not sway coders on how to interpret their response at another timepoint). After all items were coded, responses were matched back to the appropriate participant for longitudinal analysis. For ease of analysis, pseudonyms were assigned without taking gender or race into consideration. These pseudonyms are used when discussing the results, below.

Qualitative data for both Item One (Describe, in your own words, how you feel about learning organic chemistry) and Item Two (What made you feel the way you do about organic chemistry?) were deductively and independently coded by two coders using the codebooks previously developed for the qualitative items in the ATOC (Collini et al., 2023). For Item One, codes consisted of positive, negative, neutral, or blended responses with elements of multiple attitudes, shown in Fig. 2. For Item Two, thematic codes (outlined in Fig. 3) were assigned. Codes consisted of Theme 1 (Reputation), Theme 2 (Educators), Theme 3 (Experiences with Organic Chemistry), Theme 4 (Experiences with Introductory Chemistry), and Theme 5 (Individual Experiences). Theme 3 and Theme 5 both have several subthemes as outlined in Fig. 3; however, Subthemes 3.5 (Laboratory) and 3.6 (Grades) were not found to be present in this longitudinal set of data and were therefore excluded. For all data sets, Cohen's kappa values for interrater reliability between the two coders was calculated initially, and were consistently above 0.61, indicating substantial agreement at minimum. For any differences between the codes, the coders met to come to complete consensus (Cohen's kappa = 1) (Watts and Finkenstaedt-Quinn, 2021).

Fig. 2 A representative example of each code for student responses to ATOC Item One: “Describe in your own words how you feel about learning organic chemistry.” Responses are coded as positive, negative, neutral, or blended. Positive statements are shaded blue, neutral statements are shaded yellow, and negative statements are shaded red.

Fig. 3 An overview of the coding scheme for student responses to ATOC Item Two: “What made you feel the way you do about organic chemistry?” The five major themes and respective subthemes are shown. Subtheme 3.5 and 3.6 (shown in gray) were not found to be present in the longitudinal dataset.

Results and discussion

Each student's response from Cohort One (N = 17) and Cohort Two (N = 4) has been visually represented in a storyboard (Fig. 4 and 5 respectively), which shows both the students’ changes in attitudes and the influences that they cited as shaping those attitudes. For each participant, the color within Fig. 4 and 5 represents the students’ attitude (i.e., the code in response to ATOC Item One). Within each circle are the numbers corresponding to the themes that the students cited at the given timepoint (the code in response to ATOC Item Two). Both storyboards (Fig. 4 and 5) provide evidence that students’ attitudes and the influences on those attitudes change for many as they proceed through the organic chemistry course sequence. Though some students maintain their attitude throughout the course sequence, the majority of students’ attitudes shift over time.

Fig. 4 A storyboard representation was used to visualize Cohort One (N = 17) student responses to ATOC Item One “How do you feel about learning organic chemistry?” and ATOC Item Two “What makes you feel the way you do about learning organic chemistry?”. Responses to Item One are represented by color, outlined in the key on the right, and responses to Item Two which correspond to each theme are indicated by the numbers in the circles (Theme 1 – Reputation, Theme 2 – Educators, Theme 3 – Experiences with Organic Chemistry, Theme 4 – Experiences with Introductory Chemistry, Theme 5 – Individual Experiences, see Fig. 3 for subthemes). Responses at the beginning of Organic Chemistry I (Pre OC1) are indicated in the column on the left, responses at the beginning of Organic Chemistry II (Pre OC2) are indicated in the column in the middle, and responses at the end of Organic Chemistry II (Post OC2) are indicated in the column on the right.

Fig. 5 A storyboard representation was used to visualize Cohort Two (N = 4) student responses to ATOC Item One “How do you feel about learning organic chemistry?” and ATOC Item Two “What makes you feel the way you do about learning organic chemistry?”. Responses to Item One are represented by color, outlined in the key on the right, and responses to Item Two which correspond to each theme are indicated by the numbers in the circles, (Theme 1 – Reputation, Theme 2 – Educators, Theme 3 – Experiences with Organic Chemistry, Theme 4 – Experiences with Introductory Chemistry, Theme 5 – Individual Experiences, see Fig. 3 for subthemes). Responses at the beginning of Organic Chemistry I (Pre OC1) are indicated in the column on the left, responses at the beginning of Organic Chemistry II (Pre OC2) are indicated in the column in the middle, and responses at the end of Organic Chemistry II (Post OC2) are indicated in the column on the right.

Euler diagrams (Fig. 6) were constructed to better understand interactions of different influences, and how those influences change over time. These diagrams were constructed using the R package ‘eulerr’ and were used to identify the prevalence and interplay of the themes uncovered during the analysis of ATOC Item Two (Larsson, 2021). These diagrams, shown in Fig. 6, only represent the major themes uncovered; subthemes have not been represented to allow for a more accessible diagram. The Euler diagrams indicate evidence that students in Cohort One are shifting from initially citing a variety of influences that shape their attitudes towards organic chemistry to citing mainly Theme 2 (Educators) and Theme 3 (Experiences with Organic Chemistry). The decreasing prevalence of overlap indicate that students’ responses to Item Two shift from being multifaceted in nature to attributing their attitudes to only one or two themes (Themes 2 and 3, primarily). For Cohort Two, Fig. 6 shows that only three themes, Theme 1 (Reputation) Theme 3 (Experiences with Organic Chemistry) and Theme 5 (Individual Experiences), were cited throughout their time in organic chemistry. This suggests that these students’ reasoning for their attitudes was rooted in their experiences in the organic classroom from the first timepoint, which may be reflective of the fact that these students were considered “off-sequence” and had possibly taken organic chemistry before.

Fig. 6 Euler diagrams were created using the R package “eulerr” and used to demonstrate the prevalence of themes in each cohort's responses to ATOC Item Two “What made you feel the way you do about organic chemistry?” Cohort One is shown in the top panel (N = 17), and Cohort Two is shown in the bottom panel (N = 4). Euler diagrams show changes over time, as well as how those themes overlap at each timepoint (Larsson, 2021). The diagram with responses from the beginning of Organic Chemistry I (Pre OC1) is displayed on the left, the diagram with responses from the beginning of Organic Chemistry II (Pre OC2) is displayed in the middle, and the diagram with responses from the end of Organic Chemistry II (Post OC2) is displayed on the right. Due to mathematical limitations of the Euler diagram, the representation of the overlap in thematic responses for the Cohort One Pre OC1 timepoint does not accurately show that there is an additional overlap between Themes 1, 2, 4, and 5.

Cohort one

Initially positive attitudes. Six students entered organic chemistry with a positive attitude in Cohort One. Of the six, two of those students maintained a positive attitude throughout the course sequence. For example, Aleji's comments were consistently expressive of positive attitudes initially stating, “I feel interested in the subject” (Aleji, Pre OC1) as they began first-semester organic chemistry. As they began second-semester organic chemistry, they then stated, “I like ochem I likes the way my professor taught ochem so that made me like it more. I already had an interest in chem from my ap chem teacher that drives me to do well because I enjoy chem in general” (Aleji, Pre OC2). Finally, at the end of second-semester organic chemistry, Aleji stated, “I love it” (Aleji, Post OC2). Mo expressed similar views, initially stating, “I’m excited about learning organic chemistry” (Mo, Pre OC1) and then stating, “I enjoy it and am excited to learn it” (Mo, Post OC2) at the end of second-semester organic chemistry. Both Aleji and Mo cited Theme 2 (Educators) as to why they felt the way they did about organic chemistry in response to ATOC Item Two for the final timepoint (Post OC2). This provides evidence that these students attribute their positive attitudes about organic chemistry to their educators’ actions.

The remaining four students who began with a positive attitude all shifted to include some negative perception: either a blended response with negative and positive elements, fully negative, or a blended response with negative and neutral elements. Those students who shifted towards more negative perceptions began with similar responses to the students who maintained a positive attitude. However, at the final timepoint of the study (Post OC2), these students gave responses which were characterized with negative attitudes, noting the struggles they had in the course instead of only focusing on the positives. A few examples of these include: “Stressed” (Rae, Post OC2); “It's fun, but can be hard at times” (Toph, Post OC2); and “The material is fair but can be difficult” (Ari, Post OC2). These students primarily cited Theme 3 (Experiences with Organic Chemistry), especially Subtheme 3.2 (Materials and Content) as the reason for their final attitude in response to ATOC Item Two.

Initially neutral attitudes. Two students indicated neutral attitudes initially during the Pre OC1 administration of the ATOC, which were characterized by neither positive nor negative statements, such as: “So long as there's enough practice, I think organic chemistry shouldn't be too hard. The main issue is just the concepts need to be applied in order for them to make sense” (Jacky, Pre OC1). By the final timepoint (Post OC2), both students had moved away from their neutral positions. Jacky, for example, noted both positive and negative emotions towards the course: “Difficult but nonetheless rewarding,” (Jacky, Post OC2). To give insight into this, Jacky's initial response to Item Two was “Personal experience and bit from others” (Jacky, Pre OC1) but had shifted to focus on personal experience with the content by the end of second-semester organic chemistry, stating that “the number of reactions and mechanisms needed to be memorized, as well as cross-application of reactions across the course content” was what made them feel the way they did.

Initially blended attitudes. Three of the four students who started with blended attitudes during the Pre OC1 administration of the instrument ended with fully negative attitudes expressed for the Post OC2 final timepoint. Mack, for example initially described their feelings in a very robust way: “It is scary because everyone is [bringing] a bad name for it. I believe with dedication and a very passionate teacher like my own I can manage and try and get my desired grade. It's all about mindset” (Mack, Pre OC1). However, by the end of second-semester organic chemistry, Mack had shifted to a negative attitude, saying “It's tough.” (Mack, Post OC2), stating they felt this way because of “The teachers and the material” (Mack, Post OC2). Similarly, Mai began with a sense of apprehension but determination, but by the end of the second semester, they exhibited a completely negative shift in attitude, saying, “It's hard and useless in life.” (Mai, Pre OC1). Mai gave an extensive answer about why they held this negative attitude: “I took [Professor X], and [their] tests were so much harder than what we learned in class, so its difficult and discouraging. The concepts are hard and there is no real-life application for organic chemistry. There will never be a moment in life where I need to know about ozonolysis or whatever else.” (Mai, Post OC2). Like Mai, all three of the students that began first-semester organic chemistry with a blended response but ended second-semester organic with a negative response cited Subtheme 3.2 (Materials and Content) when responding to Item Two, noting how difficult the course is, the lack of relevance, and/or the volume of the material.

Initially negative attitudes. Four students began the course sequence by giving fully negative responses for Pre OC1. Three of these students shifted away from a negative attitude by the end of the course. For example, Geo expressed fear about the class: “I am scared! Although I am pre-med I haven’t had a good track with understanding chemistry and I had to retake my chem 1 and 2 twice to pass the class. So I am really nervous because I wanna take and pass this class once” (Geo, Pre OC1). By the end of second-semester organic chemistry, Geo shifted from negative to neutral by saying, “It was alright” (Geo, Post OC2). When asked what made them feel this way, they replied with “Nothing! It's a hard class” (Geo, Post OC2), indicating the course itself (Theme 3) played a role in their shift. At the initial data point. Adri also cited Theme 3 to explain their attitude, which shifted to become more neutral, by stating “the difficulty of open-ended problems and large amounts of memorization required” (Adri, Post OC2) is what made them feel the way they did.

Sokka's shift is the most perplexing, expressing a negative attitude towards organic chemistry initially: “I am very nervous about learning organic chemistry” (Sokka, Pre OC1). Sokka states that the reason for this is that “General Chemistry was really hard for me so already having a hard past with gen chem makes me nervous for organic chemistry.” (Sokka, Pre OC1). This negative attitude is maintained throughout the Pre OC2 timepoint, with Sokka responding to Item One with simply “Stressed” (Sokka, Pre OC2), and clarifying response to Item Two saying, “All the information keeps piling up on top of each other” (Sokka, Pre OC2). Then Sokka's attitude shifts from negative to positive, responding to Item One with simply: “Great.” (Sokka, Post OC2). In response to Item Two, they offered little more information, responding only with “Easy” (Sokka, Post OC2), potentially indicating that the course material was easy. This is a strong shift from both earlier timepoints. Unfortunately, this student did not provide additional insight about what caused the attitude to shift in the Post OC2 administration of the instrument.

Only one student, Siirip, began the course with a negative attitude and maintained this negative attitude throughout the course sequence. Siirip began the course sequence expressing intimidation: “It's kind of intimidating and hard to learn.” (Siirip, Pre OC1). At this timepoint, Siirip stated they felt this way because of experiences with previous instructors (Theme 2): “My general chemistry professor.” At the beginning of second-semester organic chemistry, Siirip expressed that they still held negative attitudes towards the course, saying: “I still do not like it” (Siirip, Pre OC2). At this timepoint, Siirip shares more about their own abilities (Theme 5) and previous chemistry courses (Theme 4): “I’ve never really had a strong background in chemistry so it's always been a challenging subject for me” (Siirip, Pre OC2). Finally, Siirip expresses an even stronger negative attitude, indicating that they “Absolutely hate it.” (Siirip, Post OC2). When asked why they felt this way, Siirip continued to cite their experiences in their general chemistry course.

Cohort two

Initially neutral attitudes. Two students in Cohort Two began their organic chemistry course sequence with neutral attitudes, one ending with negative attitudes, and the other neutral. Stevie initially responded to Item One simply by stating that they felt “Okay” (Stevie, Pre OC1) about learning organic chemistry. At the second timepoint (Pre OC2) their response changed to “I like it, it is tough though” (Stevie, Pre OC2), a blend of positive and negative attitudes. However, their final response to Item One is identical to their first, saying again only “Okay” (Stevie, Post OC2). Uniquely, Stevie's answers to Item Two actually clarified their overall feelings towards the course. This was not observed by the researchers elsewhere in this longitudinal study. On multiple occasions, Stevie's responses to Item Two were more detailed than their responses to Item One. For example, their response to Item Two at the second timepoint (Pre OC2) gives insight into their previous feelings about organic chemistry: “I was nervous to take chemistry at first but once I got pretty okay at it I enjoyed a little more.” Though Stevie did not indicate any feelings of nervousness when they responded to Item One at timepoint one (Pre OC1), this reflective response indicates that they may have had that feeling at that time. Similarly, Stevie's response to Item Two at the final timepoint, “Not my favorite subject it I enjoy it sometimes” (Stevie, Post OC2), served to expand upon their neutral response to Item One, indicating that they may have underlying attitudes which were not expressed by them in Item One. These responses demonstrate a limitation of the study; because it was conducted via survey, follow-up questions to elucidate more robust responses from students were not possible. This is discussed further in the limitations section.

Initially negative attitudes. Bren started out feeling negatively about organic chemistry at the beginning of OC1, shifting to a neutral attitude by the end of the course sequence, stating: “I dislike organic chemistry, I don’t enjoy it very much.” (Bren, Pre OC1) and “Not bad, i don’t like it but i dont hate it.” (Bren, Post OC2). When asked why they felt this way, Bren's response was “taking it and not being very good at it.”

Initially blended attitudes. Vanat began the organic course sequence with a mixture of positive and negative emotions, stating: “It is interesting however, this semester is very confusing as far as assignments being due and lack of communication” (Vanat, Pre OC1). However, they expressed fully negative emotions as they began second-semester organic chemistry, saying they were “Not a fan of it” (Vanat, Pre OC2), before finishing the course sequence with a neutral attitude toward the class, stating that it was “Okay” (Vanat, Post OC2). Vanat shared thorough reasoning for why they felt that way in responses to Item Two, sharing, “I feel that it is irrelevant to my major and what I need to know” (Vanat, Pre OC2) and “its hard” (Vanat, Post OC2).

Overall trends

Overall, the findings for Cohort One are in line with previous data generated by the ATOC, with students representing a variety of attitudes and citing every major theme as reasons for those attitudes (Collini et al., 2023). These findings indicate that these students’ attitudes are being shaped by a variety of sources as they begin first-semester organic chemistry; however, their course experiences and educators become the dominating influence on their attitudes over time. Further, at the end of the course sequence, many students who did not begin with a negative attitude shift towards a more negative attitude overall. Of particular interest in understanding these shifts in students’ attitudes are the six students who began with positive attitudes. At the first timepoint (Pre OC1), all of these students’ responses were very similar; however, their final attitudes reflect a stark difference in experience. Two students maintained their positive attitudes, continuing to give similar responses throughout the course sequence, while the other four students’ attitudes shifted to be more negative. All four were students who began the course with self-proclaimed interest and excitement but ended without mentioning these positive emotions towards organic chemistry. All four also indicated that their educators and the course material made them feel this way, which reflects the overall shift of Cohort One in their responses to Item Two at the final timepoint (Post OC2). The students’ comments on the course material focused on the difficulty of the subject matter and lack of perceived relevance. This is unsurprising considering the wide body of research literature indicating that students at all levels of organic chemistry do not have good understanding of the material (Graulich, 2015). The students' mentions of memorization and pace of the course align well with curricular reform efforts focused on de-emphasize breadth in favor of depth (Flynn and Ogilvie, 2015; Cooper et al., 2019). However these students’ experiences in primarily lecture-based courses speak to the reality of a research-practice gap, wherein researchers have not successfully developed methods to enable educators to enact their findings in the classroom (Sweeder et al., 2023).

Students within Cohort Two showed less variety in attitudes and themes cited and moved towards a more neutral attitude by the final timepoint (Post OC2), with only one student finishing the course sequence with a negative attitude. The other three students finished the course sequence with a neutral attitude. The students in Cohort Two primarily cited Theme 5, including the perceived relevance to the students’ career paths (utility value), self belief, and interest and enjoyment of chemistry as a whole, or organic chemistry specifically. While utility value has been linked to attitude, interest and self belief are both considered distinct constructs (Bauer, 2008). Self-belief emotions in particular have been widely studied by Raker and colleagues, finding evidence of reciprocal causation relationship between self-belief and performance (Villafañe et al., 2016; Gibbons and Raker 2019; Raker et al., 2019).

The differences exhibited between data collected from Cohort One and Cohort Two students may be due to the smaller sample size of longitudinal data for Cohort Two. However, there is potential that these differences between the two groups may indicate that off-sequence organic chemistry students have different attitudes and experiences in comparison to on-sequence students. Further research is needed to investigate this phenomenon.

Conclusions and implications

Overall, this longitudinal study provides evidence that students’ attitudes towards organic chemistry frequently change over the course of their time enrolled in the course sequence, as do the influences that shape their attitudes. Most students in Cohort One shifted over time to express more negative attitudes, and shifted to citing fewer reasons for feeling the way they did. At the first timepoint, students cited a variety of influences on their attitudes, but primarily cited course material and educators at the final timepoint. In contrast, students in Cohort Two shifted towards eliciting more neutral responses, citing primarily the material and individual experiences throughout their time in the course sequence.

Implications for practice and research

This study was conducted to lay the foundation for eventual reform in the classroom. Further research is needed to determine the appropriate affective interventions to improve students’ learning experiences, as well as course outcomes.

First, it is critical to determine how students’ attitudes are impacting their organic chemistry course performance. The impact of attitudes on traditional measures of success (such as drop/fail/withdraw rates) in organic chemistry has not yet been investigated. Second, it would be valuable to conduct a longitudinal study with a larger sample size, enabling statistical analyses for the data collected to measure potential relationships between students’ attitudes and semester grades. This would help investigators to determine if the shifts in students’ attitudes over time are significantly related to their course performance. Additionally, a larger sample would help to determine if the most frequently cited influencing factors (Theme 2, Theme 3, and Theme 5) are consistent in larger groups, as this may influence potential target areas for intervention. Third, a mixed-methods approach with a larger sample size would provide the opportunity to triangulate data through both qualitative and quantitative lenses. This might include pairing the qualitative items with quantitative items from other established instruments, such as the Attitude Towards the Subject of Chemistry Inventory version 2 (ASCIv2), which has been shown to effectively measure changes in student attitudes longitudinally in general chemistry settings (Brandriet et al., 2011).

For organic chemistry educators, this study reports themes cited by students that shaped their attitudes, which may serve as possible areas to consider reforms in individual classrooms. The most consistently cited theme at the end of second-semester organic chemistry was Theme 3 (Experiences with Organic Chemistry). Specifically, students mentioned perceived difficulty of the material, perceived emphasis on memorization, and the large volume of material covered. Another often-cited theme was Theme 5 (Individual Experiences), with students focusing on their lack of interest or the perceived lack of relevancy of the course to their lives and career aspirations. Previous work has emphasized the importance of including context-based and relevant examples in chemistry education experiences (Bodner and Orgill, 2007; Orgill et al., 2019). Unfortunately, taking time to incorporate examples which enhance students’ interest and emphasize the relevancy of the course is difficult due to time constraints and the volume of material that is already covered in a semester. In light of these findings, organic chemistry instructors may want to consider how they might make changes (i.e., which material to remove from the course curriculum and how to further incorporate context-based examples) to help improve students’ learning experiences. Curriculum reform can be difficult to execute at the individual classroom or university levels, underlining the need for the field to re-evaluate the organic chemistry curriculum and identify what reforms to the standardized material will benefit students’ learning experiences.

The need for this kind of curricular reform has already been recognized by some. One example is the development of the mechanistic approach for instruction, which was designed to help students overcome the tendency to memorize; additionally, the Organic Chemistry, Life, the Universe and Everything (OCLUE) curriculum has been developed to improve students’ abilities to connect organic chemistry to everyday life (Flynn and Ogilvie, 2015; Cooper et al., 2019). However, neither of these curricular modifications have been widely incorporated in standardized organic chemistry course materials and assessments.

Finally, students consistently mention that their educators shape their attitudes towards organic chemistry. In fact, the only two students who maintained a positive attitude throughout the course sequence attributed these attitudes in part to their educators’ influence. However, students that shifted to more negative attitudes also mentioned their educators’ impact on those attitudes. This is a difficult theme to address, as personalities, common interests, and teaching methods may appeal naturally to some students in the class and not others. However, it is certainly worth investigation both by the research community and by educators at an individual level. For researchers, it would be valuable to identify what aspects of an educator's approach impact student affect in the context of organic chemistry. For educators, it may be valuable to take time to self-reflect and consider how our classroom practices are shaping our students’ experiences and attitudes. To achieve this, it may be beneficial to use an anonymous instrument (such as the ATOC) to help understand students’ perceptions and feelings about learning organic chemistry.

Author contributions

In an effort to normalize the practice of transparency in the preparation of this work, the specific contributions of all authors are: study design: MAC, RW, MBA; data collection: MAC, RW, MBA; coding: MAC, KM; analysis: MAC, KM, RW, MBA; interpretation of results: MAC, KM, RW, MBA; writing: MAC, KM, RW, MBA; editing and revisions: MAC, RW, MBA; funding and resources: MBA.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts to declare.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the University of North Texas for funding this research, the organic chemistry students who took time to participate in the research study, the organic chemistry instructors who allowed us to use class time to distribute the survey, and the administrative staff of the University of North Texas Department of Chemistry. The authors would also like to thank Dr Adri Corrales, Dr Jenna Tashiro, Dr Uyen Tran-Parsons, and Sarah York for their time spent conversing, giving feedback, and educating on important issues in equity work.

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