Intermolecular forces are one of the important foundational concepts in chemistry, and students apply this concept throughout different chemistry courses in the curriculum. Previous studies have shown the importance of student understanding of this concept, how well students apply this knowledge, and how students retain the information.  This study investigates how an authentic learning experience impacts student understanding of intermolecular forces. The goal of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of an authentic learning experience by examining how students improved between tests, how much students enjoyed the activity, how well students thought the activity improved their understanding, and how students in different level courses responded to the activity. To investigate this, students in different chemistry courses were given a lecture on intermolecular forces and participated in a lab activity to elaborate on the concept. Results show that the scores of Fundamentals of Chemistry, General Chemistry, and Organic Chemistry students significantly improved between the pretest and posttest. This suggests that this activity is beneficial for students enrolled in various level chemistry courses. Student enjoyment and perception of understanding were measured using Likert scale responses ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” The median for student enjoyment was five, indicating that students “strongly agree” that they enjoyed the activity. The median for student understanding was four, indicating that students “agree” that this activity improved their understanding of intermolecular forces. Lastly, results indicate that there is no significant difference in the improvement scores between the three courses, but Organic Chemistry students reported enjoying the activity more than Fundamentals of Chemistry students. This indicates that while students in all three courses showed similar improvement between tests, the activity better engaged students in upper-level chemistry courses.

Teaching intermolecular forces using an authentic learning experience

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