Challenges related to incorporating student-centered learning approaches within the undergraduate chemistry curriculum have long been a topic of discussion. Although considerable progress has been made in understanding how students construct knowledge within scientific disciplines, a recent report on undergraduate science education by the National Research Council emphasizes the need to implement this understanding in instructional practice. In this work, we present the design and implementation of an intervention called the CHEM 260H Studio that incorporates student-centered learning approaches. We also present our analysis of the student-generated explanations of quantum chemistry topics that are constructed within the CHEM 260H Studio, which reveals that while inaccurate representations of course concepts may persist within student-generated materials, there are many dimensions to what instructors would typically consider to be “wrong” within the explanations.<br/><br/>Our study provides an exploratory, mixed-methods approach to understanding the nature of inaccuracies contained within student-generated explanations. Specifically, our report focuses on inaccuracies in student explanations that persist even after a thorough peer review process. We present an analysis of multiple types of inaccuracies, noting that they do not all reflect the same type of student misunderstanding. Instead, we emphasize that there are multiple dimensions of "wrong" that may be present in student-generated explanations. We also investigate the relationship between the peer review process and the types of inaccuracies that persist despite review. Based on our findings, we discuss the potential for the peer review process to address the persistent inaccuracies that we observe.

Multiple dimensions of “Wrong”: Using student generated explanations of quantum chemistry concepts to explore student conceptual understanding

251st National Meeting (2016)

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