Self-explaining is a constructive learning activity that prompts students to generate casual inferences, for example, when students need to explain natural phenomena using scientific concepts. Self-explaining can lead to significant learning via the careful design of activities that promote such inference generation. Prior research efforts provide evidence of the potential application of self-explaining as a learning strategy at college level science courses. However, the research efforts are limited and point out to further investigation of self-explaining in the learning environment of the lecture classroom. Thus, the work presented here comes to support research on the self-explaining by investigating the change in explanatory behaviors of Liberal Studies students enrolled in introductory chemistry courses. The study investigated explanatory behaviors change utilizing six in-class activities designed to promote differential self-explaining behaviors. The activities consisted of problems that presented students with experimental data (e.g., chemical and physical properties of molecules) for them to explain in light of chemical theories and concepts. Data collection consisted of written explanations from 45 students at six points along the timeline of the course. The written explanations were coded using published coding schemes from prior self-explaining studies. The transformed data were then analyzed via latent transition analysis to investigate the potential change in students’ explanatory behavior over time. The study was replicated with an independent sample (i.e., different students, different semester, same chemistry course) to investigate the reproducibility of findings. We present the data analysis and discuss the implications of the results for undergraduate chemistry education at the college level.

Inference generation by liberal studies students in chemistry courses: Latent transition analysis of explanatory behavior over time

2019 Fall National Meeting

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.