Exploring the impact of career-relevant reading materials on students’ utility perceptions of chemistry

Abstract

Students in introductory chemistry pursue various programs of study (such as biomedical engineering) and may not see chemistry as central to their pursuits. The Informative Utility Value Intervention (IUVI) was developed to provide students with reading materials that explicitly link chemistry topics to their future career interests. By offering career-contextualized content, IUVI aims to help students recognize the practical applications of chemistry for their career interests. The current study qualitatively compares students' written reflections before and after engaging with the reading materials for perceptions of the utility of chemistry. Findings indicate that engagement with the IUVI reading materials reinforced, refined, or expanded students' perceptions of chemistry's utility, depending on how well the provided materials resonated with their career interests. Students’ prior conceptions and content alignment of the reading materials played a central role in shaping students’ perceptions of utility value of chemistry. These findings emphasize the importance of offering students greater autonomy to support the development of utility value of chemistry.