Chemistry curricula have many connections with ideas in other science courses students pursue, but in order to take advantage of this, students must realize the overlapping nature of ideas across disciplines.  This research explores the possible influence from assessment practices on students achievement of conceptual understanding and the possible link to the extent they realize its connections to larger scientific themes.  Findings demonstrate how assessment practices in an introductory chemistry course may influence students' goals in learning and the extent to which they focus on generating connections between the course content and ideas from other sciences courses.  Exams for this study were structured to encourage students to develop a deeper understanding by requiring that they make connections between ideas in the course and understand the underlying theories, rather than merely memorize individual facts. The exams include about 15 multiple-choice questions, followed by a series of short-answer questions.  Many of these items require the students to make connections between multiple concepts and apply these in novel situations.  In turn, this course requirement to connect multiple ideas to perform well on exams, along with student self-reported motivation to succeed, created an environment in which students challenged themselves to develop new learning approaches in an effort to gain deeper understanding. Student interviews suggest that the conceptual focus of the exams encouraged them to utilize learning approaches which did not simply lead to memorization of independent facts, but instead strengthened their understanding through explanation and evaluation of ideas.  Results further indicate that students who evaluated the ideas presented to them both demonstrated a more complete understanding of atomic level phenomena and understood the relevance of the course material towards explaining the world around them as well as related science courses.

Promoting deeper thinking and generation of connections between ideas in science through choice of assessment questions

248th National Meeting (2014)

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