How Chemistry Education Research & Practice serves chemistry education

Abstract

This editorial coincides with my start as Editor for Chemistry Education Research and Practice (CERP). Since the purpose of CERP is to serve the chemistry education community of authors and readers, this editorial describes my reflection on how CERP serves the chemistry education community. CERP provides a ready venue for authors to share chemistry education research (CER) and for researchers and educators to learn from this research. By focusing exclusively on CER, it has served to differentiate CER from more general education research and scholarship in teaching and learning products. As a result, CERP provides clear recognition of CER including to those outside the field of chemistry education. A particular strength of CERP is the number of reviewers who provide constructive feedback within their reviews. This feedback supports authors in advancing their work and serves the readers by improving the quality and relevance of the work that appears in CERP. In closing, possibilities for how CERP may better serve the chemistry education community are raised as an ongoing discussion with the community.

Introduction

This editorial coincides with my start as Editor for Chemistry Education Research and Practice (CERP). Therefore, I would like to share my experiences with CERP and my perspective on how CERP serves the chemistry education community. CERP traces its roots to Chemistry Education. Research and Practice in Europe, which first appeared in 2000. In 2003, the current name for CERP was taken in recognition of the international community of authors and readers who were engaging with the journal (Tsaparlis, 2003). The intended focus for CERP has been chemistry education research (CER), described as research on the process of learning chemistry, and the practical implications that may derive from this research. I share in the perspective noted by others (Cooper and Stowe, 2018; Stains, 2022; Graulich et al., 2023) that CER has expanded tremendously in the quality and quantity of published work. In my view, the establishment of CERP has contributed significantly to the growth of CER. CERP has served to provide a ready venue for authors to share CER work and researchers and educators to learn from CER work, and CERP has provided clear recognition of CER to those outside the field (e.g. university administrators, tenure review committees). Importantly, by focusing solely on CER, the journal has served to distinguish CER from more general education research studies and from scholarship on the teaching of chemistry that may lack a theory-base, an evidence-base, or methodological rigor. While both general education research studies and scholarship on teaching serve important purposes, it is necessary to distinguish CER from these endeavors for the field of CER to grow.

CERP's founding is proximal to my first engagement in CER as a graduate student. Part of my graduate work was published in CERP. At the time it was a risky proposition. Upon submission the journal was two years removed from a name change and it was unclear if the journal would be sustainable; this concern was more prescient given the outsized role of early career research products on job opportunities and funding applications. My experience with the journal left a positive impression as the paper received timely and exceptionally thorough and constructive reviews. I continued to submit work to CERP and review for CERP as much as possible hoping to deliver the same experience to other researchers. I came to consider the journal as indispensable for the field of CER. I also noticed that all the correspondence with the journal came from Editors Keith Taber and Michael Seery. It occurred to me that this journal, which was essential to the field I cared about greatly and to my career, appeared dependent on their impressive, individual efforts. Recognizing the value of CERP and wanting to promote the sustainability of the journal, I offered to help and as a result took on an Associate Editor position starting in 2018.

An “Ethics of Care” perspective

The largest strength of CERP is the community of readers, authors, reviewers, and editors who view and contribute to CERP. It is now possible for anyone to publish their work on a personal webpage with the click of a button. It is therefore essential that a journal delivers high quality material that is of interest and utility to the readers for the journal. Reviewers and editors serve as a critical link connecting authors to the readers. At the most basic level, the work of reviewers and editors is to identify material that is of high quality and relevant to the journal's audience and advances the field of CER. A unique perspective from an editor position is seeing hundreds of manuscripts and accompanying reviews. This perspective allows unique insight into the relationship between reviewers and authors.

From this perspective, I have noted that many CERP reviewers move beyond the “basic level” of review that only identifies relevant material of suitable quality. This observation became evident when I began reading and reflecting on the Ethics of Care instructional perspective. Ethics of Care describes an instructional setting that is based on both students and instructors caring about successful instruction and demonstrating this care through validation and positive responses (Ruttenberg-Rozen et al., 2021; Shukla et al., 2022). Shukla and colleagues (2022) describe an Ethics of Care perspective as combining a capacity to nurture with high standards of performance. In practice, the learner and instructor share respect for the experiences and work put forth by each other while maintaining the goals of the course.

Many CERP reviews share the philosophy of respect for the authors, validation of the authors’ efforts, and maintaining a view on the quality of work that appears in the journal. Commonly, CERP reviewers describe aspects of manuscripts that are well done, aspects that are incomplete or concerning, and recommendations for how to address concerning aspects. This time-intensive work does more than support authors in their pursuit to advance their work. It serves the readers through the quality and relevance of the work that ultimately appears in CERP. It is also particularly beneficial to newer authors in the field who may not be familiar with the expectations for publishing. As an author submitting to CERP, I have directly benefitted from these efforts. In 2008 I sought to publish work in CERP demonstrating evidence for validity of a set of chemistry assessments. It was a reviewer comment that notified me of a validity framework and a reference to learn more. It strengthened the work at the time and became a central framework in my later research and in teaching assessment design. This is one example of many; reviewer comments have informed my co-authors and myself of frameworks that have changed how we saw our results and strengthened the eventual work. It is also evident in the number of authors who have commented that their revised work has improved in responding to the reviewer comments.

It is important to point out that there are places where the review process cannot fully achieve the Ethics of Care perspective. Ethics of Care describes the building of relationships, and care based on reciprocity and tailored to the motivation of individuals (Noddings, 2010). The review process is admittedly not designed for developing long-term individualized relationships between reviewers and authors. Further, providing feedback to authors that is both supportive of the authors’ work and maintaining standards for the journal is an ideal. Some manuscripts arrive to the journal far afield from the scope and the best timely feedback that can be provided given our expertise is to encourage authors to identify other venues for their work. Other times, we fall short on delivering this ideal. As an ideal, it is a goal to strive towards. A strength of CERP is the frequency that this ideal has been met. It is my hope that we, as a CER community, continue to reach for this ideal of valuing authors’ efforts, supporting improvements where possible, and maintaining a high standard for publishing quality work.

Building on the strength of CERP

In under 25 years, CERP has clearly established itself as a respected venue for publishing CER. This accomplishment can be attributed to the community of authors and reviewers, but also to editors past and present. I want to highlight the efforts of two editors who are completing their work with the journal: Editor Gwendolyn Lawrie and Associate Editor Ajda Khaveci, each have served the journal tirelessly. I am pleased to announce two new Associate Editors: Jack Barbera, Professor of Chemistry at Portland State University (United States) and Mageswary Karpudewan, Professor of Chemistry Education at Universiti Sains Malaysia. Each bring a wealth of expertise and add to the diverse viewpoints that comprise our editorial team which also includes Deputy Editor Nicole Graulich, Professor of Chemistry at Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen (Germany) and Associate Editor James Nyachwaya, Professor of Chemistry at North Dakota State University (United States). In addition to the editorial team, CERP continues to benefit from the sustained support of its publisher, the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). The RSC provides invaluable support in the production of the journal and allowing open-access to published articles. Keith Taber elaborated on the contributions and importance of the RSC in an earlier editorial (Taber, 2019) and their sustained support remains as vital today.

It is also important to look for opportunities to further strengthen CERP and the value it delivers to its readership. An area of improvement to target is making the research findings shared in CERP more identifiable and accessible to the broad community of chemistry education practitioners. We are looking at developing tie-ins with the RSC supported “Education in Chemistry” to more clearly promote teaching recommendations that derive from research-driven empirical evidence. Additionally, further developing our social media presence to tailor recognition for published works in CERP has the potential to highlight relevant work for particular audiences. I also welcome feedback from you on how CERP can effectively meet the needs of its authors and readers. As Keith Taber wrote in his final editorial “I would suspect that a journal team that never faced difficult discussions is not blessed with a full complement of conscientious critical friends representing different interests at play” (2019). I look forward to your feedback and having such discussions.

References

1. Cooper M. M. and Stowe R. L., (2018), Chemistry Education Research - From Personal Empiricism to Evidence, Theory, and Informed Practice, Chem. Rev., 118, 6053–6087.
2. Graulich N., Kahveci A., Lawrie G. A., Lewis S. E. and Nyachwaya J., (2023), Laying the foundations to build on: exploring diversity in our Chemistry Education Research & Practice community, Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 24, 8–11.
3. Noddings N., (2010), Moral education and caring, Theory Res. Educ., 8, 145–151.
4. Ruttenberg-Rozen R., Hynes K., Habibi S., Cardoza A. and Muchmaker J., (2021), Towards a community of care: Counterspaces for women in sTem education, presented at the IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society (ISTAS), Waterloo, ON, Canada.
5. Shukla S. Y., Theobald E. J., Abraham J. K. and Price R. M., (2022), Reframing Educational Outcomes: Moving beyond Achievement Gaps, CBE Life Sci. Educ., 21, es2.
6. Stains M., (2022), Keeping Up-to-Date with Chemistry Education Research Standards, J. Chem. Educ., 99, 2213–2216.
7. Taber K. S., (2019), Scholarly publishing: A partnership with mutual benefits and individual responsibilities, Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 20, 8–16.
8. Tsaparlis G., (2003), Globalisation in Chemistry Education Research and Practice, Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 4, 3–10.

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