Students’ Learning and Application of Basic Concepts in the Course “Organic Chemistry I for Preservice Chemistry Teachers”

Abstract

In their second year at the university, preservice chemistry teachers are confronted with organic chemistry. Because it is known that students often struggle with the subject, a new course design was developed, used, and evaluated for this study. To ensure meaningful learning, the students had many opportunities to actively participate in the course (because of the COVID pandemic via Zoom). Many partner and group work phases were used for solving and discussing tasks in organic chemistry. The application of basic and advanced skills was practiced explicitly as well as implicitly. The interaction among the students during the course, the use of basic concepts in the course design, and the learning outcomes of the written exam were analyzed in detail. Students’ interaction was best in the partner group phases. Here, all of the students participated equally. All concepts, such as the concepts of nucleophilicity and electrophilicity, for example, were employed during the course explicitly and implicitly. However, the analysis of the written exam showed that the students were more successful if they applied basic skills. The more complex the task, the less the application of basic skills could be observed. Whether the students applied those skills but did not write them down remains unclear, although the results hint that they did not. In the future, the application of basic and advanced skills should be made more transparent.