Ethnically diverse students' knowledge structures in first‐semester organic chemistry

Abstract

Chemistry courses remain a challenge for many undergraduate students. In particular, firstsemester organic chemistry has been labeled as a gatekeeper with high attrition rates, especially among students of color. Our study examines a key factor related to conceptual understanding in science and predictive of course outcomes-knowledge structures. Previous research on knowledge structures has focused on differences between experts and novices. Given the increasing ethnic diversity of college classrooms and research indicating unique differences in certain higher order cognitive processes associated cultural practices and ethnicity, it is important to investigate whether similar patterns exist with respect to knowledge structures. Our study utilized concept maps to measure knowledge structures. Two separate analyses where performed to determine whether or not ethnically diverse students' organize their knowledge of organic chemistry content in structurally different ways. The first analysis utilized concept map proposition scoring to examine the influence of prior science achievement and ethnicity on knowledge structures. The second analysis examined holistic map structures to determine whether or not ethnically diverse students show qualitatively distinct structures overall. Results show significant mean differences on concept map proposition scores related to both prior science achievement and ethnic group membership. However, examination of holistic structures revealed that students' qualitative holistic structures did not vary by ethnic group membership. Taken together, our findings suggest that variation in students' knowledge structures are related to prior science achievement across ethnic groups, not qualitative differences in the ways ethnically diverse students' structure knowledge. Implications for teaching and learning in organic chemistry are discussed. #

Los mapas conceptuales como instrumento para analizar las ideas de los estudiantes de Maestro de Educación Primaria sobre qué enseñar de nutrición humana en Educación Primaria

“…En el ámbito educativo, como estrategia de enseñanza/aprendizaje, los mapas conceptuales, además de emplearse para planificar la enseñanza (Guruceaga y González, 2004;Nousiainen, 2012), se utilizan también para: identificar ideas previas, externalizar y obtener el conocimiento conceptual de los estudiantes (Derbentseva, Safayeni, y Cañas, 2007;Chang, 2007;Brandstädter, Harmsa, y Großschedl, 2012), organizar, sintetizar y comunicar lo que saben los alumnos, captar las relaciones entre contenidos que establece el alumnado (Lopez et al, 2014), auxiliar a los alumnos a…”

“…27 Núm. 3 (2016) 1247-1269 reflexionar sobre su estructura cognitiva y el proceso de producción del conocimiento (Novak y Gowin, 1988), analizar la estructura los libros de texto (Lloyd, 1990), explicitar la planificación docente, seleccionar contenidos de enseñanza y evaluar los conocimientos de los alumnos (McClure, Sonak, y Suen, 1999;Nesbit y Adesope, 2006;Assaraf y Orion, 2010;Lopez et al, 2014) entre otras aplicaciones. Hay que destacar que Núñez y Banet (1997) utilizaron los mapas conceptuales específicamente en la formación de maestros y concretamente se centraron en el tema de la nutrición humana.…”

“…3 (2016) 1247-1269 de la nutrición, sistemas que intervienen en la nutrición, relación entre alimentación y salud y relación entre alimentación/nutrición y medio), que deben tenerse en cuenta en la enseñanza de la nutrición humana. Esto demuestra que los mapas son una herramienta idónea para organizar, sintetizar y comunicar lo que saben los alumnos (Guruceaga y González, 2004;Nousiainen, 2012), y que puede y debe ser utilizada en la formación docente (Lopez et al, 2014). Por otra parte, cabe destacar que, al igual que defienden otros autores (Roig y Araya, 2013), para los fines de esta investigación han resultado útiles tanto los mapas conceptuales propiamente dichos, como aquellos otros esquemas que en estricto sentido no podrían calificarse como tales.…”

Assessing changes in high school students' conceptual understanding through concept maps before and after the computer-based predict–observe–explain (CB-POE) tasks on acid–base chemistry at the secondary level

“…Vanides et al (2005) used a four-level rubric to evaluate the quality of the propositions in the relational scoring method. Lopez et al (2014) investigated the influence of prior science achievement and ethnicity on students' knowledge structure using Vanides et al (2005)'s proposition scoring system. Scoring propositions provided them quantitative information about the accuracy of students' knowledge structure.…”

Improved Learning Through Collaborative, Scenario-based Quizzes in an Undergraduate Control Theory Course

“…Similar to differences based on gender, research with concept inventories has found that some questions appear to disadvantage students who are blind, based on their experiences [106]. Across disciplines, it is clear that prior experiences matter and can misrepresent student understanding [107].…”