Investigating students' similarity judgments in organic chemistry

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 774-784 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Graulich ◽  
G. Bhattacharyya
Keyword(s):  
Organic Chemistry ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Chemical Properties ◽  
Direct Perception ◽  
Critical Attribute ◽  
Visual Science ◽  
Similarity Judgments ◽  
Lewis Structures

Organic chemistry is possibly the most visual science of all chemistry disciplines. The process of scientific inquiry in organic chemistry relies on external representations, such as Lewis structures, mechanisms, and electron arrows. Information about chemical properties or driving forces of mechanistic steps is not available through direct perception, and thus looking beyond the respresentation is challenging for learners. In this study, we investigated the categorization behavior of undergraduate students enrolled in an organic chemistry course when engaged in various categorization tasks involving electrophilic addition reactions to alkenes. The critical attribute a student chose to make a category out of a set of reactions was classified as perceptual or relational and gave insights into how students process and store information about reactions at an early level of expertise. Our results support the notion that students are prone to the surface level of representations and make sense of reactions depicted in a very minimalistic fashion. Implications for approaching this phenomenon in teaching are discussed.

Chemical Bonding 1: Basic Concepts

2021 ◽  
pp. 81-101
Author(s):  
Christopher O. Oriakhi
Keyword(s):  
Chemical Bonding ◽  
Chemical Properties ◽  
Lattice Energy ◽  
Bond Polarity ◽  
Formal Charge ◽  
Basic Concepts ◽  
Lewis Structures ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Octet Rule

Chemical Bonding I: Basic Concepts examines general ideas of chemical bonding between atoms and ions and how this bonding affects the chemical properties of the elements. An overview of Lewis symbols, Lewis structures and the octet rule is presented including the role of valence electrons in ionic and covalent bonding. The energy changes that accompany ionic bond formation are also discussed with emphasis on lattice energy. The chapter covers guidelines and general procedures for writing Lewis structures or electron dot formulas for molecular compounds and polyatomic ions. The concepts and applications of resonance, formal charge and exceptions to the octet rules are presented, along with coverage of the relationship between bond polarity and electronegativity.

Introduction: Why oxygen chemstry?

1992 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald T. Sawyer ◽  
R. J. P. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Organic Chemistry ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Chemical Properties ◽  
First Year ◽  
Chemistry Curriculum ◽  
Design And Synthesis ◽  
Carbon Molecules ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
Fixed Array ◽  
Oxygen Atoms

The fundamental premise of chemistry is that all matter consists of molecules. The physical and chemical properties of matter are those of the constituent molecules, and the transformation of matter into different materials (compounds) is the result of their reactions to form new molecules. A molecule consists of two or more atoms held in a relatively fixed array via valence-electron orbital overlap (covalent bonds; chemical bonds). In the nineteenth century chemists focused on the remarkable diversity of molecules produced by living organisms, which have in common the presence of tetravalent carbon atoms. As a result the unique versatility of carbon for the design and synthesis of new molecules was discovered, and the subdiscipline of organic chemistry (the science of carbon-containing molecules) has become the dominant part of the discipline. Clearly, the results from a focus on carbon-based chemistry have been immensely useful to science and to society. Although most molecules in biological systems [and produced by living organisms (particularly aerobic systems)] contain oxygen atoms as well as carbon and hydrogen (e.g., proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, lipids, hormones, and vitamins), there has been a long tradition in all of chemistry to treat oxygen atoms as “neutral counterweights” for the “important,” character-determining elements (C, H, Al, Si, Fe, I) of the molecule. Thus, chemists have tended to take the most important element (oxygen) for granted. The chemistry curriculum devotes one or two year-courses to the chemistry of carbon (“Organic Chemistry”), but only a brief chapter on oxygen is included in the first-year and the inorganic courses. However, if the multitude of hydrocarbon molecules is from the incorporation of oxygen atoms in single-carbon molecules argues against the assignment of a “neutral character” for oxygen atoms [e.g., Cn(graphite), CH4(g), CH3OH(1), CH2(O)(1), HC(O)OH(1), (HO)2C(O)(aq), CO(g), CO2(g)]. Just as the focus of nineteenth century chemists on carbon-containing molecules has produced revolutionary advances in chemical understanding, and yielded the technology to synthesize and produce useful chemicals, polymers, and medicinals; I believe that a similar focus on oxygen chemistry is appropriate and will have analogous rewards for chemistry, biochemistry, and the chemical process technologies.

The development of Chinese undergraduate students’ competence of scientific writing in the context of an advanced organic chemistry experiment course

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 270-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Deng ◽  
Gregory J. Kelly ◽  
Lishi Xiao
Keyword(s):  
Organic Chemistry ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Scientific Writing ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
Chemistry Experiment ◽  
Development Of Students

This study examines scientific practices associated with scientific writing in organic chemistry in China. Although there is rapidly growing literature on the features and strategies of scientific writing, further research in this area is needed to recognize and treat scientific writing as a social endeavor to evaluate it in a more comprehensive and detailed way in order to effectively convey scientific information to readers. This study shared these important premises and attempted to investigate the development of Chinese undergraduate students’ competence of scientific writing. Twenty-two undergraduate students majoring in chemistry participated in this study. They experienced a researcher-intervenedAdvanced Organic Chemistry Experimentcourse and were asked to write scientific articles on the six course experiments. Their scientific writings were analyzed based on normativity, objectivity, and logicality. These dimensions of the development of students’ competence in scientific writing during the course were portrayed. This study suggested that student's development in scientific writing can be divided into categories, demonstrating the importance and implications of teaching “learn to write” in science.

Explicit versus implicit similarity – exploring relational conceptual understanding in organic chemistry

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 924-936 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Graulich ◽  
Sebastian Hedtrich ◽  
René Harzenetter
Keyword(s):  
Organic Chemistry ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Conceptual Understanding ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Substitution Reactions ◽  
Representational Competence ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Large Molecules ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Research And Teaching

Learning to interpret organic structures not as an arrangement of lines and letters but, rather, as a representation of chemical entities is a challenge in organic chemistry. To successfully deal with the variety of molecules or mechanistic representations, a learner needs to understand how a representation depicts domain-specific information. Various studies that focused on representational competence have already investigated how learners relate a representation to its corresponding concept. However, aside from a basic connectional representational understanding, the ability to infer a comparable reactivity from multiple different functional groups in large molecules is important for undergraduate students in organic chemistry. In this quantitative study, we aimed at exploring how to assess undergraduate students’ ability to distinguish between conceptually relevant similarities and distracting surface similarities among representations. The instrument consisted of multiple-choice items in four concept categories that are generally used to estimate the reactivity in substitution reactions. This exploratory study shows that the item design for assessing students’ conceptual understanding influences students’ answering patterns. Insights and pitfalls gained from this investigation and future directions for research and teaching are provided.

Ethenesulfonyl Fluoride (ESF) and Its Derivatives in SuFEx Click Chemistry and More

Synthesis ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (05) ◽  
pp. 673-687 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan-Ping Meng ◽  
Shi-Meng Wang ◽  
Wan-Yin Fang ◽  
Zhi-Zhong Xie ◽  
Jing Leng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Organic Chemistry ◽  
Click Chemistry ◽  
Exchange Reaction ◽  
Organic Synthesis ◽  
Medicinal Chemistry ◽  
Materials Science ◽  
Click Reaction ◽  
Chemical Properties ◽  
Chemical Transformations ◽  
Absolute Reliability

The sulfur(VI) fluoride exchange reaction (SuFEx), developed by Sharpless and co-workers in 2014, is a new category of click reaction that creates molecular connections with absolute reliability and unprecedented efficiency through a sulfur(VI) hub. Ethenesulfonyl fluoride (ESF), as one of the most important sulfur(VI) hubs, exhibits extraordinary reactivity in SuFEx click chemistry and organic synthesis. This review summarizes the chemical properties and applications of ESF in click chemistry, organic chemistry, materials science, medicinal chemistry and in many other fields related to organic synthesis.1 Introduction2 Chemical Transformations of ESF3 Chemical Transformations of 2-Arylethenesulfonyl Fluorides4 Novel SuFEx Reagents Derived from ESF5 Applications of ESF Derivatives in Medicinal Chemistry6 Applications of ESF Derivatives in Materials Science7 Conclusion

scholarly journals Modified spiral organic curriculum on organic chemistry courses for chemistry education undergraduate students

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lina Fauzi’ah ◽  
Artina Diniaty ◽  
Widinda Normalia Arlianty ◽  
Beta Wulan Febriana
Keyword(s):  
Organic Chemistry ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Chemistry Education

scholarly journals Using the SERVQUAL Framework to Examine the Service Quality in Higher Education in Thailand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Fuchs ◽  
Keerati Fangpong
Keyword(s):  
Service Quality ◽  
Student Satisfaction ◽  
Customer Service ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Business Students ◽  
Quality Measurement ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Business Community ◽  
Measurement Tool

Customer service and quality are driving forces in the business community. As higher educational institutions struggle for competitive advantages and high service quality, the evaluation of educational service quality is essential to provide motivation for and give feedback on the effectiveness of educational plans and their implementation. Monitoring student satisfaction with education quality has become an integral part of the educational process in not only a number of universities, but also further afield. This research presents an enhanced approach to using the SERVQUAL framework for measuring student satisfaction. It involves the use of factors concerning student services that are queried and surveyed using the SERVQUAL methodology. The proposed instrument was tested at a regional university in Thailand with a sample of 400 undergraduate students. Rigorous analysis demonstrates the usefulness of the approach in gathering business students’ perceptions, analyzing them, and reducing them to a form usable by management as an off-the-shelf service quality measurement tool.

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