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Recent studies have reported a growing trend of using student-generated diagrams for assessment in science teaching and research. However, many educators tend to use diagrams to explore students' perceptions of scientists and their work rather than explore conceptual understanding of abstract concepts. In this study, we used diagrams to investigate students' conceptual understanding of the nature of hydrogen bonds among water molecules in snowflakes. Participants were 70 first- and second-year university students. Following a sequence of interview prompts, the students drew diagrams to illustrate the interactions amongst water molecules in snowflakes. Sixty students' diagrams were analyzed inductively using a constant comparison method. Most diagrams showed that the students did not have major challenges drawing the water molecule structure, recognizing polarity of a water molecule, or recognizing the intermolecular nature of hydrogen bonds. However, the diagrams revealed varied ways in which students conceptualized the formation of hydrogen bonds. A third of the diagrams revealed students' alternative conceptions about the role of lone pairs of electrons in the formation of hydrogen bonds. Most diagrams which showed a good understanding of the nature of a hydrogen bond revealed students' difficulties in recognizing molecular interactions in a 3D space. Our findings suggest that student-generated diagrams can provide a powerful way to understand students' conceptions of abstract science concepts.

In recent years, chemistry educators are increasingly adopting immersive virtual reality (IVR) technology to help learners visualise molecular interactions. However, educational studies on IVR mostly investigated its usability and user perceptions leaving out its impact on improving conceptual understanding. If they evaluated students' knowledge gains, they tended to use information recall tests to assess knowledge gains. Employing interviews and diagram-drawing tasks, this study explored how students' conceptual understanding of the nature of hydrogen bonds and the shape of snowflakes changed through a collaborative IVR experience on snowflakes. Participants were 68 undergraduate chemistry students. Videos of pre-/post-interviews and student-generated diagrams were analysed. The results indicated a marked improvement in students' conceptual understanding of the nature of hydrogen bonds among water molecules in snowflakes. After IVR, 57 students provided scientifically acceptable explanations of the nature of hydrogen bonds. Improvements in students' understanding were related to the intermolecular nature of hydrogen bonds, the role of lone pairs of electrons in forming hydrogen bonds, and molecular interactions in 3D space. This study suggests that collaborative IVR could be a powerful way for students to visualise molecular interactions, examine their alternative conceptions, and build more coherent understanding. Implications for the design and implementation of IVR activities for science learning are discussed.

The advanced visualisation and interactive capabilities make immersive virtual reality (IVR) attractive for educators to investigate its educational benefits. This research reviewed 64 studies published in 2016-2020 to understand how science educators designed, implemented, and evaluated IVR-based learning. The immersive design features (sensory, actional, narrative, and social) originally suggested by Dede provided the framework for the analysis of IVR designs. Educators commonly adopted IVR to better aid visualisation of abstract concepts and enhance learning experience. IVR applications tended to have sensory and actional features, leaving out narrative and social features. Learning theories did not appear to play a strong role in the design, implementation, and evaluation of IVR-based learning. Participants generally reported their IVR experiences as positive on engagement and motivation but the learning outcomes were mixed. No particular immersive design features were identified to result in better learning outcomes. Careful consideration of the immersive design features in alignment with the rationales for adopting IVR and evaluation methods may contribute to more productive investigations of the educational benefits of IVR to improve science teaching and learning.

A remote laboratory that measures the enthalpy of vaporization ([delta]"H"[subscript vap]°) and the entropy of vaporization ([delta]"S"[subscript vap]°) of "n"-octane was designed, constructed, and offered to second-year physical chemistry undergraduates at the University of New England (UNE) and Curtin University. The experiment was delivered in real-time, using equipment controlled remotely via the internet. A survey instrument was developed to investigate the learning process from the students' viewpoint and was followed by focus group interviews. Guidance from the laboratory manual and from the visual hints available through the webcam was important for their learning and was used most frequently among all the interactions. The students were satisfied with the laboratory and would like to perform other remote experiments. Types of learning interactions, such as experiment construction and technical skill learning, could be partly achieved with support from technicians and the meticulous design of online guidance.

This paper describes the development, final design and validation of an instrument that measures a range of student interactions and satisfaction in undergraduate chemistry laboratories. Student surveys or conceptual and attitudinal instruments are widely used techniques for collecting relevant information on student learning. However, there is a lack of specific instruments for collecting data on the relationships between social factors and learning. Consequently, this study attempted to fill this gap by introducing an instrument--the Interactions in Undergraduate Laboratory Classes (IULC). The design of the IULC instrument is based on the theory of distributed cognition, meaning that knowledge is not rooted in an individual's mind, but develops in the process of interacting with the environment. The instrument covers three aspects: (i) frequency of interactions, (ii) satisfaction and (iii) importance of interactions for the specific laboratory. Undergraduate students (N = 204) enrolled in a first-year chemistry course participated in a test case for the instrument and the corresponding data were analysed using different methods for each of the three parts. The factor structure of the data obtained from the first part of the instrument and internal consistency measures are discussed. Among findings captured by the instrument, student-teacher (instructors in the university context) interactions correlated positively with students' satisfaction levels. Implications and suggestions for the use of the instrument are discussed.

This study contributes to the understanding of online professional development of university STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) lecturers. An active learning massive open online course (MOOC) to develop best practice in teaching in university science laboratories was developed using the ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation) model in three cycles. The teaching beliefs and intentions of the participants were determined before and after they completed the MOOC and their level of satisfaction with this professional development opportunity was examined using a survey. The results showed high completion rates and an appreciation of the online course design. Participants who completed the course evaluation were satisfied and they identified the usefulness of the active learning components that required them to discuss and reflect, develop plans and peer-assess. A large majority developed new ideas to help them to improve their teaching. The participation in the course increased participants’ understanding of the multidimensional aspects of laboratory teaching and the challenges related to it. The majority of participants changed their teaching beliefs to become more student-centred.

Educational reforms in Qatar have seen the implementation of inquiry-based learning and other student-centred pedagogies. However, there have been few efforts to investigate how these adopted western pedagogies are aligned with the high context culture of Qatar. The study presented in this article highlights the implementation of a student-centred intervention called Process-Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) in selected independent Arabic government schools in Qatar. The study followed a theoretical framework composed of culturally relevant pedagogical practice and social constructivism in teaching and learning. A mixed method research design involving experimental and comparison groups was utilised. Carefully structured learning materials when implemented systematically in a POGIL intervention helped Grade 10 science students improve their perceptions of chemistry learning measured from pre- and post-tests as measured by the What Is Happening In this Class (WIHIC) questionnaire and school-administered achievement test. The study further provided school-based mentoring and professional development opportunities for teachers in the region. Significantly, POGIL was found to be adaptable in the Arabic context.

The Qatari government has made significant changes in the organization and staffing of schools over the past decade in an effort to improve the academic performance of school-aged citizens. Of interest is the need to encourage teachers to move from a didactic teacher-led mode of instruction to one that is more student-centred, but also teacher-guided, which encourages the development of critical thinking, problem solving, inquiry, and investigative skills. In this article, we discuss past and current educational changes and developments in Qatar with an emphasis on an initiative in chemistry that explored the utility and cultural transferability of student inquiry learning approaches to improve student conceptual understanding as well as their attitudes and self-efficacy. Based on the current activities described in this article, we argue that the developments and commitment to educational reform in Qatar can act as a guide for other nations that wish to move from a didactic teaching to a more student-centred approach.

This study investigated the year 12 students' (N = 56) understanding of chemical equilibrium concepts after instruction using two conceptual tests, the "Chemical Equilibrium Conceptual Test 1" ("CECT-1") consisting of nine two-tier multiple-choice items and the "Chemical Equilibrium Conceptual Test 2" ("CECT-2") consisting of four structured questions. Both these tests were administered before and after the intervention. Students' responses to the items in both the instruments indicated limited understanding of the various concepts related to chemical equilibrium. Less than 50% of the students provided correct responses to four of the nine items in the "CECT-1." The total scores in the "CECT-1" ranged from 0 to 8 with a mean score of 4.14 (out of a maximum of 9). In the "CECT-2" the total scores ranged from 7 to 17 with a mean score of 11.0 out of a maximum score of 22. Almost half the number of students (44.6%) scored less than 50% of the total marks in the "CECT-2"; only 0% to 42.9% of students scored the maximum possible marks for each of the four items while achievement in all four items of the "CECT-2" was below 50%. The findings will be valuable and assist teachers in planning their instruction on chemical equilibrium by taking into consideration students' preconceptions about the topic.

The laboratory instruction sheet (sometimes called a laboratory manual), together with the equipment used by students, is an essential resource for laboratory work. It has a direct influence over all the interactions that can occur in the laboratory activity, of which student-equipment is the only common synchronous interaction in both face-to-face and remote-access laboratories. This article offers a student perspective on the function, utility, and importance of laboratory instruction sheets in Engineering along with their preferred design for both face-to-face and remote modes. Both qualitative and quantitative investigations were made for studying students' perceptions. The laboratory sheet was found to be a contributing factor to student satisfaction for student-equipment interactions in face-to-face laboratories and important to students' experience in remote-access laboratories in giving them a feel of operating real equipment. Further important findings include the need for the instruction sheet to meet different content requirements and emphases that depend upon the laboratory mode and different levels of student academic achievement.

This paper describes an Australian Learning and Teaching Council funded project for which Learning Design is encompassed in the broadest sense. ALIUS (Active Learning In University Science) takes the design of learning back to the learning experiences created for students. ALIUS is not about designing a particular activity, or subject, or course, but rather the development of a method, or process, by which we have re-designed the way in which learning occurs in large university classrooms world wide. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

Laboratories play a crucial role in the undergraduate science curriculum and the effectiveness of learning in laboratories is influenced by learners' interactions with other students, the instructors, and the equipment used. In this study, a pre-lab survey was used to collect information about students' expectations of interactions in chemistry laboratories and how they can be ranked according to their importance. Post-lab surveys were used to capture students' perspectives about the frequency of interactions that existed in laboratory sessions they had completed. Direct observations of some laboratories were also conducted principally to validate students' self-reported interactions. The data were also sorted by three levels of student achievement in order to relate students' expectations of the importance of different interactions (pre-lab survey) and their self-reported frequency of interactions (post-lab survey) with their laboratory grades. Results from the pre-lab survey showed that student-instructor interactions were anticipated to be the most important ahead of conducting the laboratory activity, whereas results from the post-lab surveys showed that the most frequent interactions occurred between students. Students' self-reports (post-lab survey) and the direct observations agreed well suggesting that the post-lab survey is a robust tool for capturing the frequencies of student interactions in this and future studies. The results also showed that students gaining high grades both anticipated the importance of, and then engaged more frequently in, two-way communications with both students and instructors whereas students with lower grades placed a relatively higher reliance upon passive interactions such as the pre-lab briefing, the laboratory manual and internet sources. Finally, recommendations are offered to curriculum designers, instructors and students based on the overall findings of the study.

This one-semester, mixed methods study underpinning social cognition and theory of planned behaviour investigated the attitudes, self-efficacy, and experiences of 559 first year undergraduate chemistry students from two cohorts in modified process-oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL) classes. Versions of attitude toward the study of chemistry (ASCI v2), and chemistry attitudes and experiences questionnaire (CAEQ) were adopted, modified, and administered to understand and gauge students' affective outcomes before (pre) and after (post) POGIL intervention. Students' post-POGIL perceptions of their attitudes, self-efficacy and experiences were statistically significantly higher. In addition to confirmatory testing of reliability of data obtained from ASCI v2 and CAEQ in an Australian POGIL context, the findings suggest that POGIL intervention provides positive affective experiences to students who are new to chemistry or have limited prior chemistry knowledge.

Pedagogical practitioners who emphasise active learning in undergraduate chemistry courses widely use the Student Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG) instrument to measure students' perceptions of their gains in knowledge and skills in chemistry. Although numerous studies have reported SALG results in support of successful pedagogical interventions, a comprehensive construct-verified version measuring students' perceptions of their chemistry learning is lacking. This paper aims to identify latent constructs of the SALG instrument that was administered in Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) classes by using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. When the SALG was administered on two separate occasions with two different groups of students following four weeks of instruction on topics in stereochemistry, the results revealed a four-factor structure consisting of 32 items that included Active Learning, Concept Learning, Resources, and Process Skills. These findings demonstrate an approach to collect evidence to support the match between intended constructs and measured variables in light of a targeted pedagogical intervention.

This study involved the evaluation of the efficacy of a planned instructional program to facilitate understanding of the macroscopic, submicroscopic and symbolic representational systems when describing and explaining chemical reactions by sixty-five Grade 9 students in a Singapore secondary school. A two-tier multiple-choice diagnostic instrument consisting of fifteen items was administered after nine months of instruction. Analysis of the students' performance on the diagnostic test, showed improved understanding of the use of multiple representations compared to that of seventy-six students of similar achieving ability in the prescribed program of instruction. (Contains 1 table and 3 figures.)

This study focused on the attitude of tertiary students, in a science discipline, towards completing collaborative learning tasks. Two samples of students, enrolled in different units across different tertiary institutions, were considered. Students in sample 1 were required to work in small groups to produce an information poster on an allocated chemistry topic. Students in sample 2 were given the task of producing a short iMovie on a science topic of their choice. A mixed methods approach was used to collect attitudinal data from students via pre- and post-surveys. Data collected were interpreted within the context of six key factors drawn from the literature on collaborative learning: level of interest in the task; familiarity with other group members; level of contact (related to the assignment) for completion of the task; strategy used to complete the task; student's self-evaluation of their group's effectiveness and overall opinions on the use of collaborative learning tasks in science at a tertiary level. Student comments indicate that most considered these collaborative learning tasks a positive and motivating experience. Written open-response questions indicate that students recognize the importance of developing strong interpersonal skills during their tertiary studies, to enhance future employment prospects, and felt completion of a small group-based activity had contributed to the development of these. This study confirms that students highly value the use of collaborative learning tasks that provide an authentic learning experience and opportunity to learn subject matter in a relevant context. (Contains 2 tables and 2 figures.)

In chemical kinetics, in addition to the concepts related to kinetics, stoichiometry, chemical equilibrium and the characteristics of the reactants are often involved when comparing the rates of different reactions, making such comparisons very challenging for students at all levels, as well as for pre-service science teachers. Consequently, four multiple-choice items were developed to determine the understanding of 217 pre-service science teachers of the kinetics of acid reactions that are taught at the Grade 9 to 10 levels in Singapore schools. Each of four items compared two different acid reactions under similar conditions, and respondents were required to select the best graphical representation for the two reactions. Respondents were also required to provide reasons to explain their particular selection for each item. In addition, one item on the dissociation of sulfuric acid and two items involving excess/limiting reagents were also included to provide additional data on the pre-service teachers' understanding of these concepts that were assessed in the four items on kinetics of acid reactions. The results showed that the pre-service teachers had difficulties in explaining the properties of different common acids, including the dissociation of the acids and how these affect the rates of the different acid reactions. This study highlights the importance of determining pre-service teachers' understanding of the concepts that they will be teaching with a view to addressing areas of difficulty, as these will have consequences on their future students' learning. (Contains 4 tables and 14 figures.)

An alternative program of instruction was implemented with 33 high-achieving Grade 9 students (15-16 years old) in Singapore that overtly focused on the use of macroscopic, submicroscopic, and symbolic representations to describe and explain the changes that occurred during the burning of metals, reactions of dilute acids, ionic precipitations, and metal ion displacement reactions. Students' understandings of the use of multiple levels of representation were evaluated at the end of nine months of instruction using a previously developed 15-item, two-tier, multiple-choice diagnostic instrument. In several instances the students displayed much better understanding of the three systems of representation than 44 students from another higher-achieving Grade 9 class who were taught with the regular instructional program that did not emphasize use of multiple levels of representation. Comparison of the mean diagnostic test scores of students from the two classes indicated that the high-achieving class in the treatment group that experienced the alternative program of instruction performed significantly better than the higher-achieving class from the comparison group that experienced the regular program of instruction, further validating the efficacy of the alternative instructional program. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

Students are generally known to memorise and regurgitate chemical equations without sufficient understanding of the changes that occur at the particulate level. In addition, they often fail to recognise the significance of the symbols and formulas that are used to represent chemical reactions. This article describes an evaluation of the ability of 65 Grade 9 students (15-16 years old) from a Singapore secondary school to describe and explain seven types of chemical reactions using macroscopic, submicroscopic and symbolic representations. The study was conducted over nine months using a supplementary teaching program with particular emphasis on the use of multiple levels of representation to describe and explain chemical reactions. Students' proficiency in the use of multiple levels of representation was assessed at the end of the course using a two-tier multiple-choice diagnostic instrument that was previously developed by the authors. In order to evaluate the efficacy of the instructional program, the instrument was also administered to another group of 76 students who were not involved in the supplementary instructional program. The efficacy of the program was evident from the significantly improved scores on the diagnostic instrument of the former group of students. In addition, several student conceptions in the use of multiple levels of representation were identified that could assist teachers in their planning and implementation of classroom instruction.

The design and effects of using online pre-laboratory exercises in an introductory first-year university chemistry course that requires no previous knowledge of chemistry for non-major chemistry students is reported. The results have indicated that the majority of students involved in the study considered that their learning opportunities were increased by completing the online pre-laboratory exercises and using the online resources.