Exploring the impact of the framing of a laboratory experiment on the nature of student argumentation

Petritis, Steven J.; Kelley, Colleen; Talanquer, Vicente

doi:10.1039/d0rp00268b

Cited by 18 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…49 Students in the ArgConS group are supported in both building arguments and using concept knowledge. Students in the ArgConS group have less than 16 2. The diagnostic training took place in the 10th week, and the adapted trainings took place in the 13th week of the semester.…”

Section: Adapted Trainingsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Students’ Individual Needs Matter: A Training to Adaptively Address Students’ Argumentation Skills in Organic Chemistry

et al. 2022

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In chemistry, building arguments and applying concept knowledge is closely linked to evaluating claims, supporting claims with evidence, and justifying the linkage of evidence to claim with reasoning. However, previous studies revealed that, when building arguments, students experience challenges either in differentiating between argument components, in applying concept knowledge, or in building multivariate arguments. Scaffolding may remediate these challenges by supporting students as they focus on the expected argument structure and/or activate the required concept knowledge. As students enter the classroom with different prior knowledge, supports need to be adapted to students' needs. Thus, we designed a two-part argumentation training. The first part is a diagnostic training, in which students receive training for building arguments while their performance is analyzed. The second part consists of four trainings, adapted to the area in which each student experienced the greatest challenges, e.g., (1) in differentiating between argument components, (2) in applying concept knowledge, (3) in both areas, or (4) in building multivariate arguments. The tasks in the trainings center on building arguments on alternative reaction pathways in organic chemistry and combine a multitude of chemical concepts, such as nucleophilicity, basicity, enthalpy, or entropy. There were 64 students enrolled in an Organic Chemistry II course who participated in the training. Evaluation of the two-part training revealed (a) the effectiveness of the training and (b) how students evaluated the training themselves.

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Section: Adapted Trainingsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Students’ Individual Needs Matter: A Training to Adaptively Address Students’ Argumentation Skills in Organic Chemistry

et al. 2022

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“…22,25,28,29,[31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39]44,49,51,58,[70][71][72]75,76 problem. 23,[30][31][32][36][37][38]42,44,73,80,81 These findings indicate that instructors should carefully design problems that elicit reasoning aligned with the learning objectives for the course. Supporting students' reasoning is important because their performance on organic chemistry tasks can correlate with the use of causal and mechanistic reasoning; specifically promoting causal and mechanistic reasoning when using the EPF to solve unfamiliar problems is a beneficial practice.…”

Section: Reasoning Strategies For Describing and Explaining Reaction ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…20 Students commonly invoke the trend that more substituted carbocations are more stable as the sole reason for determining carbocation stability, often without providing chemical reasoning (such as hyperconjugative effects); students occasionally misremember the trend and incorrectly determine carbocation stability. 20,21,29,38,50,52,81 However, students can exhibit deeper understanding of influences on carbocation stability, such as hyperconjugation or induction. 35,74 Researchers have described various approaches to support students' chemical reasoning about carbocation stability beyond the number-of-substituents argument; these approaches have elicited students' reasoning with properties including the size of substituents, resonance, partial charges, and inductive effects.…”

Section: Carbocationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mechanistic Reasoning in Organic Chemistry: A Scoping Review of How Students Describe and Explain Mechanisms in the Chemistry Education Research Literature

Dood

Watts

2022

J. Chem. Educ.

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Organic chemistry reaction mechanisms are central to the discipline of organic chemistry but challenging for students to learn and for instructors to teach. Due to the unique challenges surrounding the topic, reaction mechanisms have been the focal point of many studies within organic chemistry education research. This article provides a scoping review of the existing research on students' descriptions and explanations of organic chemistry reaction mechanisms and synthesizes the results and implications of the body of literature. The first half of the article provides an overview of the various reasoning frameworks researchers use to characterize students' reasoning with reaction mechanisms, including synthesizing the literature on students' approach to reaction mechanisms using a range of teleological, anthropomorphic, mechanistic, and causal reasoning. The second half of the article synthesizes the findings in the literature regarding students' explanations of features and concepts common across reaction mechanisms (i.e., the electron-pushing formalism, nucleophiles and electrophiles, acid−base theories, resonance, leaving groups, and carbocations). Findings across the literature regarding approaches for supporting students' reasoning with each feature and concept are described within each section. The review concludes with a synthesis of the implications for instruction and provides an overview of directions for future research.

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“…Practical sessions are therefore framed in a way that steers students toward inductive reasoning. 15 The lab module contains some practicals which have previously been modified to include elements of inquirybased learning. 13 The modifications were introduced as part of a normal cycle of renewal and implemented and evaluated by undergraduate students working as research partners.…”

Section: ■ Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introducing Elements of Inquiry and Experimental Design in the First Year of an Undergraduate Laboratory Program

Thomson

Lamie

2022

J. Chem. Educ.

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This work further implements the "elements of inquiry" approach in a first-year undergraduate laboratory course, in a two-part inquiry sequence. In the first part of the sequence, students iteratively develop a "best-practice" TLC procedure. In the second part, students iteratively optimize a simple organic reaction using TLC, making experimental design choices within a controlled environment. The work has been well-received by students and instructors, as a reflection of real-world research challenges introduced at a first-year level.

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Exploring the impact of the framing of a laboratory experiment on the nature of student argumentation

Abstract: Research on student argumentation in chemistry laboratories has mainly focused on evaluating the quality of students’ arguments and analyzing the structure of such arguments (i.e. claims, evidence, and rationale). Despite...

Cited by 18 publications

References 23 publications

Students’ Individual Needs Matter: A Training to Adaptively Address Students’ Argumentation Skills in Organic Chemistry

Students’ Individual Needs Matter: A Training to Adaptively Address Students’ Argumentation Skills in Organic Chemistry

Mechanistic Reasoning in Organic Chemistry: A Scoping Review of How Students Describe and Explain Mechanisms in the Chemistry Education Research Literature

Introducing Elements of Inquiry and Experimental Design in the First Year of an Undergraduate Laboratory Program

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