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The use of virtual laboratories has become an increasing issue regarding science laboratories due to the increasing cost of hands-on laboratories, and the increase in distance education. Recent studies have looked at the use of virtual tools for laboratory to be used as supplements to the regular hands-on laboratories but many virtual tools have not been used as replacements. In order to understand the effects of virtual laboratory methods as well as ascertain the effectiveness of our normal lab procedures, we used a virtual versus hands-on scenario for an electrochemistry laboratory. We separated our General Chemistry II Lab students into two groups. Each group completed an electrochemistry lab either through our normal hands-on format or with the use of a virtual lab animation created by the Iowa State Education Group. Pre- and post-test data for conceptual and factual understanding were collected as well as a post-test hands-on setup of an electrochemical cell. There were no significant differences in scores on either the pre-test, post-test, or the hands-on setup test. However, individual item analysis on the tests revealed a significant difference in the use of the salt bridge during the post-test and the hands-on setup activity.

In the 1998–99 academic year, the Department of Chemistry at the University of Manitoba reorganized its first-year course to include two types of sections: “regular sections” for students with high school chemistry grades above 70%, and “developmental sections” for students with grades between 50 and 70%. The regular sections had about 200 students with two or three lectures a week for 150 min and associated labs, and, in contrast, the developmental sections had between 60 and 100 students with five lectures a week for 250 min, weekly tests, and associated labs. By end of the 2006–07 academic year, 7890 students had completed the chemistry course, and 7045 (89%) of these students were included in this study: 5600 in regular sections and 1445 in developmental sections. We found that the students in the developmental sections did better than the students in the regular sections when a number of important variables were controlled. In addition, students' grades in high school chemistry and mathematics were strongly related to their grades in university chemistry, and their attendance in classes and labs, an indicator of their engagement, had strong effects on the developmental students’ chemistry grades.

Herein we report the development of an analytic rubric bank to assess non-content learning, namely higher order cognitive skills, the understanding of the nature of science, and effective scientific communication skills in student research projects. Preliminary findings indicate that use of this tool enhances our students' learning in these areas, particularly in the area of communication, as well as eases and speeds the assessment of these skills. Our rubric bank is notable for its adaptability to a wide range of assignments, developmental levels, and science courses.

We report a comparative study using knowledge space theory (KST) to assess the impact of a hands-on laboratory exercise that used molecular model kits to emphasize the connections between a plane of symmetry, chirality, and isomerism in an introductory organic chemistry course. The experimental design compared three groups of students-two that carried out the laboratory exercise (treatment groups) and one that did not (control group). Our assessments revealed that all three groups made significant improvements in their understanding of chirality and isomerism, but that the two treatment groups showed more improvements than the control group. The KST analysis showed that the acquisition of the skills for finding a plane of symmetry in a molecule came late in the students' critical learning pathways, which indicated that this was difficult for many students. Students were unfamiliar with this type of reasoning, and our studies revealed that the laboratory exercise was useful in teaching the method to introductory organic chemistry students.

In response to a concern about the persistent underachievement in exams of Chemistry students in one school, a pilot study was carried out to see if mentoring-style intervention could improve exam performance. Individual personalised interviews were offered to a class, during which support for the development of the skills and subject knowledge for exam success was given. Student feedback indicated that they felt the individual support had assisted with their learning, but the benefit was not borne out by a statistically significant improvement in their exam results. Students reported that the gains were extended into other Science subjects, although again, this was not demonstrable from the analysis of exam results. Despite not giving a significant improvement in marks, mentoring was popular with students. The study points to a number of other, less easily quantifiable, gains that might enhance students' academic success in the medium term. The findings do, however, also raise questions as to whether mentoring represents an efficient use of resources for the purpose of raising attainment.

This quantitative study investigated the relationship between Chemistry students' scientific epistemologies and their perceptions of the nature of laboratory inquiry. Seventy-two Advanced Level Chemistry students were surveyed. The students were sampled from twelve schools in three of Zimbabwe's nine administrative provinces. Students' scientific epistemologies were determined through a 31-item Likert-type questionnaire. Their perceptions of the nature of inquiry in A-level Chemistry laboratory work were assessed through a 25-item Likert-type questionnaire. A correlational analysis revealed a very weak relationship between students' scientific epistemologies and their perceptions of the nature of inquiry in their laboratory work. Seventy-two percent of the sampled students were found to hold largely positivistic and fairly traditional scientific epistemologies. As a group, the surveyed students were found to perceive the level of inquiry in their A-level Chemistry laboratory work to be generally low. The twelve sampled schools were reasonably homogeneous with respect to both scientific epistemologies and perceptions of the nature of laboratory inquiry. Both students' scientific epistemologies and perceptions of the nature of laboratory inquiry were found not to be related to gender. Implications for both the theory and practice of chemistry education are raised.

The nature and behavior of gas particles are essential concepts in teaching and learning of school chemistry. However, findings about students' understanding of gas particles ⎯ their composition, structure, and interactions involving movement and distribution — revealed that the difficulties students encounter in understanding gas particles vary with age. The purpose of this article is to examine how students responded to six two-tier items in a diagnostic test about the behavior of gas particles in two containers and how teachers predicted students' test performance. The participants in this study were eighth graders (n = 102), ninth graders (n = 92), and physical science teachers (n = 31) in junior high schools in Taiwan. The results revealed that only a low percentage of students could answer the entire set of six questions correctly, and that the 9th graders outperformed the 8th graders. In addition, we found that students changed their models about gas behavior when the orientation of the apparatus changed, and that they had difficulty using a consistent model to answer all of the questions, especially those questions involving a change of pressure. The results also showed that the physical science teachers could not predict accurately the students’ understanding of the behavior of gas particles because they underestimated the effect of the pressure influencing students’ performance on test items. We conclude that the findings of this study suggested that science teachers could help students build a consistent view of gas particles by focusing on understanding why students would hold inconsistent models in different contexts. Educational implications for promoting students' and teachers' better use of models for learning and teaching the submicroscopic are discussed.

Distractor-driven multiple-choice assessment items and Rasch modeling were used as diagnostic tools to investigate students' understanding of middle school chemistry ideas. Ninety-one items were developed according to a procedure that ensured content alignment to the targeted standards and construct validity. The items were administered to 13360 middle school, high school, and college students from across the USA, and the student data were analyzed using Rasch modeling. A cross-sectional analysis was performed to examine the progression of understanding of chemistry from middle school to college and revealed an overall increase in understanding with increasing grade level. Option probability curves for several of the items were used to provide insight into how students' thinking changes with increasing knowledge of the ideas being tested. In some cases, hierarchies of misconceptions were detected in which the misconceptions decrease in a series as the overall student performance level increases. Additionally, for one item, the peculiar shape of the option probability curve for a distractor indicated a flaw in the item.

In 2004 national educational standards for chemistry were implemented in Germany. While the standards describe different competencies to be reached after grade 10, no compulsory contents are defined. The contents are defined by the different German states individually. This means that there are no defined common topics taught in all states that can be used for test items for the evaluation of the standards. As a result, two different types of test items are developed based on a model of competence. One type of items contains chemical content information that can be used to solve the task. The other type of items does not contain this information. The two types of items have different advantages and disadvantages; the first type are more dependent on the reading ability of the students, but their use leads to a fairer test across the different states, whereas the second type are more related to chemical content knowledge but are less fair. The two types of items are compared according to the item difficulty, correlations to reading skills, intelligence and chemical content knowledge. The results of this study can be generalized to other assessments using a similar design.