The American Chemical Society (ACS) Exams Institute has been developing and vetting the Anchoring Concepts Content Map (ACCM) as a tool for programmatic assessment for undergraduate chemistry curricula. Currently, the general chemistry and organic versions of the ACCM have been published and used to analyze content coverage over time. Additional ACCM are being developed for inorganic, analytical, physical, and biochemistry. Each ACCM has identical Anchoring Concept statements (Level 1, “Big Ideas”) and Enduring Understanding statements (Level 2). Each sub-discipline map varies at the subdisciplinary articulation statements (Level 3) and the content details (Level 4). In order to explore the use of the ACCM as a programmatic assessment tool, ACS exams across the different sub-disciplines of chemistry were mapped to the first two levels of the ACCM. For example, while the different courses may teach different content details for “Bonding”, underlying concepts as described in the enduring understanding statements remain stable. Therefore, it would be possible to track students understanding of bonding across the different chemistry courses based on their performance on the various bonding questions found on ACS exams. In order to explore the relationship of selected areas of content across the different sub-disciplines of chemistry, ACS exams from organic, analytical, biochemistry and inorganic, and general chemistry have been mapped to the Level 2 statements. Content coverage (or lack thereof) will be presented in order to show the applicability of the crosscutting use of the ACCM. Data from a lateral study of chemistry curricula as measured by content coverage on ACS exams will be presented.

Exploring the use of the Anchoring Concepts Content Map as a programmatic assessment tool

249th National Meeting (2015)

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