Integrating Real-World Contexts and Application Cards Activities in the General Chemistry I Course Increases Students’ Achievement Scores and Perceptions of Chemistry Relevance

Abstract

Contextualized chemistry curricula have been shown to positively impact academic outcomes, especially in middle and secondary school levels. However, only a limited number of investigations on the impact of real-world contextualized curricula on students’ learning outcomes in chemistry lecture courses in postsecondary education have been reported. In this study, we investigated the effect of a contextualized chemistry curriculum on General Chemistry I students’ achievement scores and perceived relevance of chemistry content, as well as the correlation between students’ perceived content relevance and the achievement scores in the course. A treatment group was exposed to chemistry content enriched with real-world contexts, contextualized quizzes, and application cards activities, whereas a comparison group was taught through the conventional approach. Data included scores from a final chemistry test and a 5-point Likert scaled chemistry relevance survey. The survey generated three constructs, namely personal relevance, chemistry utility, and societal relevance. Results indicated significantly higher achievement scores for the treatment group compared to the comparison group, after controlling for ACT math scores, with a medium effect size (η2 = 0.075). The treatment group also showed significantly higher mean rating scores on the three constructs compared to the comparison group (p < 0.05). Additionally, paired sample t-test results showed improved perceptions scores on the constructs in the Post survey for the treatment group, but a drop on the perceptions scores on the constructs, except Personal relevance for the comparison group. Additionally, Pearson correlation coefficients showed positive correlations between the constructs and the achievement scores, with significant linear relationships between the variables noted for the treatment group (p <.05). A significant correlation was only between Chemistry utility and performance for the comparison group. The results imply the potential of the context-based learning approaches reported herein to bolster performance and enhance chemistry relevance.