Evaluating student motivation in organic chemistry courses: moving from a lecture-based to a flipped approach with peer-led team learning

Abstract

Academic Motivation Scale-Chemistry (AMS-Chemistry), an instrument based on the self-determination theory, was used to evaluate students’ motivation in two organic chemistry courses, where one course was primarily lecture-based and the other implemented flipped classroom and peer-led team learning (Flip–PLTL) pedagogies. Descriptive statistics showed that students in both courses were more extrinsically motivated and their motivation moved in negative directions across the semester. Factorial multivariate analysis of covariance revealed a main effect of pedagogical approach. Students in the Flip–PLTL environment were significantly more motivated toward chemistry at the end of the semester while controlling for the motivation pre-test scores; however, there was no evidence for a sex main effect or an interaction effect between sex and pedagogical approach. Correlation results revealed variable relationships between motivation subscales and academic achievement at different time points. In general, intrinsic motivation subscales were significantly and positively correlated with student academic achievement;Amotivationwas negatively correlated with academic achievement. The findings in this study showed the importance of Flip–PLTL pedagogies in improving student motivation toward chemistry.

Development and evaluation of the organic chemistry‐specific achievement emotions questionnaire (AEQ‐OCHEM)

“…Goodness‐of‐fit measures for the subscales of the Academic Motivation Scale—Chemistry and subscales of the Regulation of Learning Questionnaire are excellent. These results mirror results found in disseminations of the instrument and with use in similar contexts (Liu et al, ; McCardle & Hadwin, ).…”

“…For amotivation , associations have appropriate signs (i.e., positive emotions associated with lower amotivation scores and negative emotions associated with high amotivation scores). External Regulation has negligible, nonsignificant associations with achievement emotions; similarly, findings in other settings (Liu et al, ) corroborated these results. The remaining subscales (i.e., introjected regulation , identified regulation , to experience , to accomplish , and to know ) have appropriately signed small to large associations with AEQ‐OCHEM subscales.…”

“…Each of 28‐items were evaluated based on the question, “Why are you enrolled in this chemistry course?” using a 5‐point Likert scale: “not at all,” “a little,” “moderately,” “a lot,” and “exactly.” There are seven AMS‐C subscales: amotivation , external regulation (extrinsic), introjected regulation (extrinsic), identified regulation (extrinsic), to experience (intrinsic), to accomplish (intrinsic), and to know (intrinsic). The AMS‐C has been shown to yield valid and reliable data when used with postsecondary general chemistry and organic chemistry students (Liu et al, ). Cronbach's alpha values for our data are “good” and “excellent.”…”

“…A notable postulate of CVT is that motivation can partially or completely moderate the influence of achievement emotions on achievement (Pekrun, b; Pekrun et al, ) which suggests a causal, mediating relationship between the two sets of constructs. We evaluate the association of achievement emotions and motivation with the Academic Motivation Scale—Chemistry (Liu et al, ), which has been shown to yield valid and reliable data with postsecondary organic chemistry students (Liu et al, ). We expect our results to corroborate prior findings: stronger associations with intrinsic motivation than extrinsic motivation.…”

“…Affect is associated with success, and therefore persistence and retention, in general chemistry and organic chemistry courses (Lewis, ; Mitchell, Ippolito, & Lewis, ). Research on affect constructs and development of associated assessment tools for chemistry education has focused in self‐efficacy (Dalgety & Coll, ; Villafañe, Xu, & Raker, ), self‐concept (Bauer, ; Nielsen & Yezierski, ), attitude (Barbera, Adams, Wieman, & Perkins, ; Heredia & Lewis, ; Xu & Lewis, ), motivation (Liu, Raker, & Lewis, ), and learning expectations (Galloway & Bretz, c). Apart from test anxiety, there are few tools that measure achievement emotions in chemistry.…”