Scientific teaching at the university level is often limited to a specific silo of knowledge with over simplified examples. However, life does not occur in vacuum, and if students are presented with an everyday phenomenon, will they be able to apply scientific concepts learned in the classroom or from experiences gained? As part of an ongoing project, we developed a survey to investigate how undergraduate general chemistry students from two different universities utilize scientific principles learned in the classroom to interpret and explain everyday phenomena. Examples of particular questions in this survey focus on how sneeze clouds grow in size after a person sneezes, what a sneeze droplet is composed of on the microscopic scale, and if a person exposed to a sneeze outside on a windy day or inside a classroom would be more likely to get sick. Using an initial framework previously created from interview data, the coding rubrics were modified based on the question prompt in the survey as well as how the student responded. The sneezing phenomena, and others selected, where designed to determine if students use knowledge from a specific discipline (such as biology, chemistry, or physics), if they use a multi-disciplinary approach, or if they rely on everyday experiences and colloquial language. In this poster, we will present initial findings from our survey data regarding how students explain everyday phenomena.

Investigating how undergraduate general chemistry students interpret and explain everyday phenomena

255th National Meeting (2018)

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