journal chemistry education research and practice

Chemistry Education Research and Practice

Subject Area and Category

• Chemistry (miscellaneous)

Ioannina University School of Medicine

Publication type

Information.

How to publish in this journal

[email protected]

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Chemistry Education Research and Practice Blog

New editor – michael seery.

I am really delighted to have been appointed as the new Editor of Chemistry Education Research and Practice. I have long been a fan of the journal, since coming across an article in it at the beginning of my career as a lecturer in chemistry. The discovery that there was a journal dedicated to supporting and promoting best practice in chemistry education was a very pleasant surprise! Since then I have been involved with the journal in various guises, being a member of the advisory board, a guest editor for a special issue on technology in chemistry education, contributing my own articles, and since 2016, being Associate Editor of the journal.

The support of the Education Division mean that CERP is free to access and demonstrates the Society’s commitment to supporting the research into, and practice of, chemistry education. As I take on the role of Editor, it prompts thought about the direction of the journal and where my own focus lies. Discussions with the Associate Editors of the journal – Ajda Kahveci and Scott Lewis – led us to consider some particular aspects that we wish to focus on. These motivations grew out of considering the value of the journal to the reader. First, we intend to continue to grow the capacity of CERP in reviewing the state of our field, so as to be a useful point of reference both for those new to the field as well as those who are experts in it.  Second, there is an onus on those of us sharing our work to ensure it is conducted and reported to the highest standards, and the journal will continue the work championed by previous editors in expecting and showcasing the very highest quality in education research methods. And third, CERP is unique in the RSC suite of journals as it is a journal with two audiences – those who are experts in the field, publishing education research – and those who are experts in using outcomes of that research in their practice. The journal then has (at least) two categories of reader, and we will continue to develop strategies to ensure value and use to both researcher and practitioner.

I have no hesitation in stating that taking on the new role is a daunting prospect. The founding editors of the journal, Stephen Breuer and Georgios Tsaparlis, created something really unique and worked hard to grow the journal to the point that it became included in Thomson Reuters Citation databases. They were succeed by Keith Taber, who has left a long legacy of editorials informing on research methods, and grown the journal substantially in its scope and reach. Keith was also a wonderful mentor to me as Editor, and I have learned an enormous amount from him during my term as Associate Editor. CERP is also extraordinarily fortunate in the reviewers who give their time to us – the quality of their reviewers is something that is often commented upon.

Therefore it is with the readers, my editor colleagues, former editors, and reviewers in mind, that I endeavour to work to continue to grow and develop this wonderful journal. I look forward to your submissions!

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Visualisations and representations in chemistry education

You are invited to submit contributions to the Chemistry Education Research and Practice (CERP) special themed issue on visualisations and representations in chemistry education, scheduled for publication in autumn 2019.

2019 themed issue

As advancements in technology continue to unfold, visualisations and, more broadly, representations in chemistry education have evolved into sophisticated representations that take into consideration experimental and computational findings as well as research on learning. Historically, early studies on visualisations were focused on how viewing pictures or animations of entities at the submicroscopic level affect conceptual understanding of the invisible world of chemistry. Consequently, much research was devoted to the manner in which visualisations could help students connect the particulate nature of matter with macroscopic processes such as laboratory experiments and demonstrations.

Educators recognise that visualisations and representations can help students form bridges from the particulate level to the symbolic level associated with equations and graphical or mathematical models. In essence, a primary goal of instructional visualisations is to assist students to develop more expert-like understanding of chemistry. Yet, visualisations have been shown to be limited in their bridging capacity and affordances. Not all students are able to understand what they view or to comprehend the complex processes portrayed through dynamic models.

These limitations have led designers to consider how to engage learners cognitively with visualisations through interactive features. For example, simulations allow students to manipulate variables and to observe the consequences of their actions, especially at the submicroscopic level. Studies connected to cognitive load and how complexity and accuracy can best be used to portray the submicroscopic level are also being carried out. Research studies have continued to explore how visualisations in three dimensions compare to those in two dimensions, and how virtual reality and augmented reality can assist learning and understanding of structural and functional entities. In addition, studies are exploring how students make sense of the submicroscopic level through their hand-drawn representations, oral explanations and their ability to reflect metacognitively on their understanding. Furthermore, eye-tracking technology has given researchers the ability to identify where students focus while they view visualisations.

This special themed issue intends to illustrate how the design and study of learning from visualisations and representations in chemistry education have progressed. It also intends to offer insight into the implications for our teaching practice.

Possible topics may include but are not limited to:

• Development and design principles of animations/simulations/virtual and augmented reality tools
• The use of drawings and storyboarding to make sense of representations
• Tools for using animation development and understanding student-generated animations
• 2D and 3D visualisations, 3D printing, haptics, or novel visualisation tools
• Design and use of representations for students with special needs (eg visually impaired students)
• Connecting representations to experimentation (eg laboratory and demonstrations)
• Eye-tracking research advancements
• How visualisations/representations can help us better understand ‘big data’
• The influence of chemistry visualisations in chemistry courses at school, college, and university levels including in specialist courses and when learning chemistry concepts taught in cognate subjects
• The role of visualisations in understanding models and connections to scale
• Development of metavisualisation skills
• Integration of different types of representations in teaching chemistry at macroscopic, symbolic, and particulate levels
• Qualitative and quantitative analytical methods for addressing learning and teaching with visualisations and representations

Articles should:

• Align with the principles and quality criteria of the journal
• Provide an argument for new knowledge supported by careful analysis of evidence
• Be situated in existing literature, and either report the meaningful analysis of carefully collected research data or the rigorous evaluation of innovative practice

Guest editors

The guest editors for this themed issue are:

• Resa Kelly (Department of Chemistry, San José State University, San José, US)
• Sevil Akaygün (Department of Mathematics and Science Education, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey)

Submission of manuscripts

Manuscripts should be submitted in the format required using the ScholarOne online manuscript submission platform .

General guidance on whether the theme of a contribution falls within the scope of the journal may be found in a published editorial. Enquiries concerning the suitability of topics of potential contributions for the theme issue should be sent directly by email to one of the theme editors: Resa Kelly ( [email protected] ) or Sevil Akaygün ( [email protected] ).

Acceptance and publication

Manuscripts should be submitted by Monday 14 January 2019 to be eligible for consideration in the themed issue. All manuscripts will be subject to editorial screening and peer review. Manuscripts received after the deadline may still be considered for the theme issue, but the usual peer review process will not be compromised to reach decisions on publication. If such articles are accepted for publication too late to be included in the theme issue, they will be included in a subsequent issue.

As with other CERP contributions, articles intended for the theme issue will be published as advance articles online as soon as they have been set and proofs have been checked, ahead of publication in the theme issue itself. Authors also have the option of accepted manuscript publication, where a pdf of their accepted manuscript is published immediately after acceptance (to be substituted by the professionally set and proofed copy once available).

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Learning progressions and teaching sequences in chemistry education

You are invited to submit contributions to the Chemistry Education Research and Practice (CERP) special themed issue on learning progressions and teaching sequences in chemistry education, scheduled for publication in autumn 2018.

2018 themed issue

Students’ learning development has been researched for decades in several traditions, including Didaktiks and teaching experiments, theory of mind and metacognitive development, conceptual change and epistemology, and sociocultural development. Insights from these lines of research have contributed to a surge in the past decade of research on learning progressions and teaching sequences.

Learning progressions are generally defined as hypotheses of pathways of learning over an extended period of time (eg years) that can be validated empirically. Teaching sequences are plans for instruction that guide learning through intended pathways. While the entry points of studying learning progressions and teaching sequences may differ, they share the goal of tackling large concepts fundamental to the domain – in our case, in chemistry. They intersect in at least two important ways: it is assumed some learning pathways are better than others, and the assessment of learning is tantamount to validating proposed models.

There has also been considerable criticism of research on learning progressions and teaching sequences. Critics have pointed out learning is complex, therefore difficult to reduce to linear, monotonic growth; learning is idiosyncratic, therefore inextricably tied to context; learning is not separable from epistemological beliefs or affects, therefore demands attention to these; and learning depends on instruction, therefore the variety in teachers’ own content knowledge, beliefs about instruction, and assessment stances needs to be taken into account.

This themed issue intends to illustrate the bandwidth of research on learning progressions and teaching sequences in the domain of chemistry, varying across educational levels, and focusing on a variety of aspects relevant to these areas of study. Together, the papers can offer perspective on both advantages and pitfalls in the construction of learning pathways in chemistry and approaches to the assessment of learning in chemistry that make possible the validation of models that can advance chemistry education.

Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Design-based cycles involving various stakeholders in developing learning progressions and teaching sequences (eg participatory action research cycles)
• Comparisons of different developmental patterns of learning (eg linear v recursive)
• Incorporation of pedagogical and structural features associated with the learning environment (eg epistemology, teachers’ assessment stances) into the design and study of learning progressions and teaching sequences
• Qualitative and quantitative analytical methods for addressing idiosyncrasies and variety in learning pathways
• Teaching experiments to foster students’ abilities to reason in different contexts in learning pathways
• Theoretical and methodological treatments that address aspects (eg granularity, scope) of the usefulness of the products of these research efforts
• Hannah Sevian (Department of Chemistry, University of Massachusetts Boston, US)
• Sascha Bernholt (Leibniz-Institute for Science and Mathematics Education, University of Kiel, Germany)

General guidance on whether the theme of a contribution falls within the scope of the journal may be found in a published editorial. Enquiries concerning the suitability of topics of potential contributions for the theme issue should be sent directly by email to one of the theme editors: Hannah Sevian  or Sascha Bernholt .

Manuscripts should be submitted by Monday 15 January 2018 to be eligible for consideration in the theme issue. All manuscripts will be subject to editorial screening and peer review. Manuscripts received after the deadline may still be considered for the theme issue, but the usual peer review process will not be compromised to reach decisions on publication. If such articles are accepted for publication too late to be included in the theme issue, they will be included in a subsequent issue.

This call for papers is available as a pdf .

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CERP 2017 theme issue: Call for papers

Themed Issue: Autumn 2017

Contributions are invited for a themed, peer-reviewed issue on  Developments of key skills and attributes in chemistry education

Employers have long urged universities to equip their graduates with a range of key professional skills and graduate attributes and many universities articulate ‘graduateness’ in terms of graduate attributes and statements. These skills and attributes encompass, for example, critical thinking, problem solving, effective communication, information skills, team work, use of technology, intercultural awareness, lifelong learning, creativity and leadership, amongst others. However, meaningful development of these skills and attributes alongside subject knowledge is challenging and requires a shift in curriculum design and pedagogy. In this special themed issue we will focus on the development of key professional skills  and graduate attributes within undergraduate degree programmes.

Visit  www.rsc.li/AboutCERP for full details.

Guest Editors: David McGarvey 1 and Tina Overton 2 ,

1 Chemistry and Medicinal Chemistry, Keele University, UK

2 School of Chemistry, Monash University,  Australia

Submission of papers

Manuscripts should be submitted by 9 January 2017 for consideration in the theme issue. All manuscripts will be subject to editorial screening and peer review.

Enquiries concerning the suitability of contributions should be sent directly by email to David McGarvey :  d.j.mcgarvey and/or  Tina Overton :  [email protected]

Chemistry Education Research and Practice (CERP)

CERP is the Royal Society of Chemistry’s international peer-reviewed journal for teachers, researchers and other practitioners of chemistry education. Editor:  Dr Keith S Taber , University of Cambridge, UK

The journal is sponsored by the RSC’s Education Division and

• is free to access
• has no page or submission charges for authors.

Coverage includes

• research, and reviews of research, in chemistry education
• effective practice in the teaching of chemistry
• analyses of issues of direct relevance to chemistry education

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CERP 2016 theme issue: Call for papers

Themed Issue: Autumn 2016

Contributions are invited for a themed, peer-reviewed issue on  Language and the teaching and learning of chemistry

For a long time language and science in general were two distinct domains that were seen as opposite to each other. However, the importance of language connected to science education in general and chemistry in particular is well known, especially when we are discussing the teaching and learning of the language(s) of chemistry or the linguistic heterogeneity of students. In this special themed issue we will focus on the learning and teaching of chemistry considering the role of language.

Guest Editors: Silvija Markic 1 and Peter Childs 2 ,

1 Institute of Didactics of Science Education – University of Bremen, Germany

2 University of Limerick, Ireland

Manuscripts should be submitted by  11 January 2016 for consideration in the theme issue. All manuscripts will be subject to editorial screening and peer review.

Enquiries concerning the suitability of contributions should be sent directly by email to Silvija Markic :  [email protected] and/or Peter Childs :  [email protected]

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6th Eurovariety in Chemistry Education 2015, Tartu, Estonia

A date for your diary:

June, 30 – July, 2  2015

Theme: Chemistry  Education  for Responsible Citizenship and Employability

More information:  https://sisu.ut.ee/eurovariety/avaleht

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Variety in Chemistry Education / Physics Higher Education Conference 2015

20-21 August 2015, University of Nottingham

First announcement from Ross Galloway, University of Edinburgh

A friendly, inclusive and informal meeting where participants share evidence-based practice in teaching physics and chemistry, discuss innovative approaches and explore pedagogic research.  Oral presentations, short oral bites and workshops will be available.  Invitations to contribute and the conference website coming soon!… so whether you are an ‘old hand’ or new to the area – save the date!

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Bursary opportunity to attend US conference

Chemistry Education: Activating Research

Pedagogical research in Higher Education (HE) science education in the USA is much better funded than it is in the UK. As a result, there appears to be a greater range of high quality pedagogical research in HE in the USA, yet contact and collaboration between researchers there and the UK is limited. To help address this situation and to work towards raising the profile of research in this area in the UK, an initiative from the Education Division of the Royal Society of Chemistry offers you a chance to widen your contacts and explore the research in the USA.

The RSC has up to 6 bursaries of £1500 per applicant are available to cover the cost of travel, accommodation and registration of attending a major conference in the USA. In 2014 bursary winners attended the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education at Grand Valley State University in August, http://www.bcce2014.org .

2014 bursary winner, Julie Hyde from the University of Hull said:

What an amazing opportunity it was to attend BCCE 2014! I learnt a lot from the sessions I attended, which I plan to take back and introduce into my teaching and share new ideas with my colleagues. It was a great learning curve and has given me the opportunity to gain many new ideas and have a better understanding of pedagogic research. I made two company links regarding software and have been in touch since I returned home. It was a super chance to network internationally and I appreciate being able to make the new links I did. Thanks very much to the HE division at the RSC for the award of this RSC Education Activating Research bursary.

Apply now for 2015!

The closing date for 2015 applications is 23 February . There is not much time left! you can find   Application forms and more information at www.rsc.org/Membership/Networking/InterestGroups/EducationDivision/Sponsorship.asp .

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John Garratt

Dear Colleagues

I have received the following message from one of our founder editors, Stephen Breuer, which I pass on to you all.

Kind regards

Dear Karen and Keith

It was with great sadness that I heard today about the death of John Garratt on 5.1.15. His involvement was before your time here, Karen, but I am sure Keith remembers him well. He was a pioneer in chemistry education, especially in the Higher Education field, the founder and early organiser of the Variety meetings, the founder editor of

University Chemistry Education, which became part of ‘new’ CERP.

Best regards,

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• Open access
• Published: 28 November 2019

Progressing chemistry education research as a disciplinary field

• Keith S. Taber   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1798-331X 1  

Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Science Education Research volume  1 , Article number:  5 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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This article offers a viewpoint regarding the current status of chemistry education research (CER) as a scholarly field within science education, and suggests priorities for future directions of work in the field. The article begins by briefly considering what makes something a discrete field of activity, and what makes such a field ‘scientific’. This provides a basis for understanding and evaluating CER, and informs a consideration of imperatives and priorities for progressing the field. In particular, it is suggested one emphasis should be on areas of work which can be considered ‘inherent’ to CER as they arise from essential aspects of chemistry teaching and learning, and some examples of such inherent research foci (the ‘chemist’s triplet’; models in chemistry; chemical explanations) are briefly discussed.

Introduction: CER as a field

This article discusses chemistry education research (CER) as a field, and considers both why it is reasonable to consider CER as a discrete field (rather than just a domain within science education research) and how this has implications for both what is considered to count as CER – such that not all educational research carried out in chemistry teaching and learning contexts (CTLC) should be considered inherently CER – and for setting priorities in the field. It is argued that a productive scientific field encompasses progressive research programmes (RP), and some suggestions are made for timely RP.

There is a range of indicators that can be used to consider the extent to which an area of activity can be considered a scholarly field (Fensham, 2004 ), and based on these indicators CER is now well-established as field in its own right. CER has its own international journals (in particular, Chemistry Education Research and Practice and the Journal of Chemical Education ) and regular conference series; there has been a stream of scholarly books on the subject from major publishers, and there is now a specialised book series ( Advances in Chemistry Education , published by the Royal Society of Chemistry). There are academics with chairs in the subject, who lead research groups focused on chemistry education, and offer specialist doctoral training.

A field needs to be focused on some sphere of activity or phenomena, and in the case of CER this is the practice of chemistry education. As an area of practice, chemistry education might be generally equated to teaching the curriculum subject ‘chemistry’. The core phenomena of interest in educational research are teaching and learning (Pring, 2000 ), and so logically the primary foci of CER are the teaching and learning of chemistry. The wider scope of CER encompasses areas of enquiry linked to these foci. This would include such matters as the chemistry curriculum (what is set out to be taught and learnt; how disciplinary chemical knowledge is represented in the curriculum); how learning of chemistry is assessed; the discipline-specific aspects of how teachers are prepared for and developed in their work; the design of teaching resources (such as textbooks and digital tools) that represent chemical knowledge in ways informed by knowledge of human learning processes or to support particular pedagogies.

Teaching is activity that is intended to bring about some specific learning. The notion of (specifically) chemistry teaching therefore has most traction in a context where there is a formal curriculum having ‘strong classification’, that is where the curriculum is divided into clearly distinguished subjects with identifiable areas of content (Sadovnik, 1991 ). This is worth noting, both because there has historically been debate on the place of discrete sciences, versus integrated or coordinated science in the curriculum at school level (Jenkins, 2007 ), and because in recent years the notion of ‘STEM’ (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) has shifted from being mainly seen as a label for a grouping of (discrete but) related disciplines, to a recognised curriculum area, and potentially indeed a curriculum subject, in the school curriculum (Chesky & Wolfmeyer, 2015 ). That is, in some national contexts STEM remains largely a construct offering a convenient branding for a strategic alliance of those wishing to raise funding support for, and public awareness of the importance of, the sciences and related areas. Yet, in other contexts the traditional boundaries between the natural sciences, and between pure and applied science, are being fundamentally questioned both in terms of science practice and science education.

In such a context, CER may not be understood as purely focused on teaching and learning in classes formally labelled chemistry, as the teaching and learning of chemical topics (e.g., acids), and specific concepts (e.g., oxidation) can occur in the context of ‘science’ lessons - or indeed STEM classes, or even within the context of curriculum offerings based around interdisciplinary projects that do not explicitly acknowledge traditional subjects (Rennie, Venville, & Wallace, 2012 ), or less formal making and tinkering activities where STEM knowledge might be developed on a just-in-time basis (Bevan, Gutwill, Petrich, & Wilkinson, 2015 ). Yet this raises the question: why consider teaching these topics in such contexts as chemistry teaching (and so within the remit of CER) rather than science teaching or STEM teaching, or just teaching.

There is also a criticism that the science taught in formal education systems is often learned as a set of discrete topics, whereas one core metaphysical commitment of science is to seek overarching ideas and superordinate concepts that can subsume previously discrete notions (Taber, 2006 ). This raises the question of whether compartmentalisation of the curriculum is a barrier to students linking up their learning (Taber, 2018a ) both within and across subject divides.

Such considerations raise an existential challenge to CER as a field. There is a very well established field of science education (Fensham, 2004 ), so it might be asked whether CER is any more than just a term covering those studies falling within science education research (SER) where the material being taught happens to be chemical. Unless there is a case to be made in response to such a challenge, CER might be seen to be simply one convenient administrative category when considering studies carried out within SER, rather than something with its own character.

Indeed, there is a strong argument to be made that the recognition of CER, and PER (physics education research), etcetera, as discrete fields owes much to the work done in higher education by researchers from within university science departments and faculties. In that context CER seems a natural category for those employed by chemistry departments - and having little opportunity to come into direct contact with teaching and learning beyond that context. That rationale offers little to those primarily concerned with teaching of school chemistry.

CER as a compound of its elements, not a mixture

Another argument that has been made is that much research that takes place in chemistry teaching and learning contexts (CTLC) is addressing general educational questions, where the choice of the particular study context may be little more than a matter of convenience, or reflect the professional concerns of practitioners enquiring into their practice to see if they can fruitfully apply recommended innovations in their own teaching. That is, although the work is carried out in a chemistry classroom or some other CTLC, that offers little more than a backdrop to an examination of some general educational focus: for example, about how best to organise a mixed-ability class into productive working groups. These are questions where the findings from one classroom may not automatically generalise to other classrooms, but where the CTLC is only one potentially relevant variable among many (age of students; gender; diversity of school population in terms of socio-economic status; proportion of students accessing the learning in a second or additional language; etc.)

This type of study has been labelled as ‘collateral’ CER (Taber, 2013b ). By contrast, ‘embedded’ CER (Taber, 2013b ) goes beyond this by carefully linking particular aspects of the specific subject matter being taught to the general educational issue - for example, not just how to implement a flipped learning approach in this class (which happens to be a first year undergraduate chemistry course), but how to best profit from the affordances of flipped learning when introducing the topic of transition metal complexes (or the Nernst equation, or whatever) given the particular challenges in teaching and learning that material.

An inherent assumption here is that the outcomes of the research are in a substantive sense dependent on teaching that is informed by the specialist knowledge about teaching and learning of specific material that a subject specialist teacher brings to the classroom: that is, the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) (Kind, 2009 ) that evolves as a kind of meta-knowledge formed from a hybridisation of subject knowledge and general pedagogic knowledge, and developed through testing out in classroom practice (Taber, 2018b ). PCK is not just a mixture or assemblage of subject and pedagogic knowledge, but something new, formed by ‘reacting’ these through planning, teaching, and evaluating classes.

An interesting thought experiment to distinguish embedded CER from collateral CER might be to consider a CER research report where every mention of chemistry, particular chemical topics, specific chemical concepts, etcetera, has been redacted; and then to ask the question whether the (now non-disciplinary-specific) conclusions of the study can still be considered robust. If we judged the study offered convincing implications independent of the disciplinary context (which is no longer available to a reader seeking to evaluate the redacted manuscript), then these have not been bound to the specific challenges of teaching the subject matter. Such research could be considered metaphorically a mixture of educational research and chemistry, as these components can be separated out, rather than a compound that has its own characteristic CER properties.

Of course, embedded CER might not be so different in kind than embedded PER or other educational research where the specifics of the curriculum context are intrinsic to the research. There may be differences in detail in how teachers can, for example, usefully apply Bloom’s taxonomy to planning different lessons (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001 ), but perhaps (and this may be considered an empirical question) those differences in detail are no greater when (a) comparing the teaching of homologous series with the teaching of electromagnetic induction, or with the teaching about the causes of the industrial revolution; than when (b) comparing the teaching of homologous series with teaching about Lewis acid theory, or with teaching about electronegativity. If that were so, then CER still seems little more than a bureaucratic label, albeit for (i) findings that are contingent on the peculiarities of specific disciplinary content (where that content falls within the discipline of chemistry), rather than (ii) findings presented as widely generalisable to different teaching contexts, which just happen to derive from a CTLC.

• Inherent disciplinary educational research

Yet, it is also the case that a discipline such as chemistry does present its own particular challenges that are somewhat distinct from those found in other disciplines, and which are also widely relevant when teaching and learning beyond a single teaching topic and across the discipline. I will here suggest two such ‘essential’ foci for ‘inherent’ CER (Taber, 2013b ) that explores issues intrinsic to the teaching of the discipline.

Johnstone ( 1982 ) mooted the idea that chemistry teaching was especially challenging because it asked students to think - often at the same time - about the macroscopic (bench-scale) phenomenon, the molecular level structure of matter, and the specialised forms of representation used in chemistry. The so-called chemist’s triplet has become a particular core concern in chemistry education where it has been recognised as critically important in teaching and learning the subject, and so has become a key focus of research and scholarship (Taber, 2013a ; Talanquer, 2011 ). This issue is important across the teaching of many topics within chemistry, but does not apply directly in other disciplines. Johnstone suggested biology and physics faced similar, although not identical, issues, but his arguments have not been seen as so centrally important in teaching those subjects. In particular, the ubiquitous use of the ‘chemical language’ of formulae and equations to bridge between the molar and molecular levels in explaining chemical phenomena is characteristic of much chemistry teaching (Taber, 2009 ).

Another issue that is especially important in chemistry relates to the nature of models met in learning the subject. Again, this seems to be an especially pertinent issue for chemistry education, where an understanding of the nature of models and modelling (both those used in chemistry itself, and the various teaching models employed to introduce abstract chemical ideas) is essential to make sense of the concepts of the subject and make good progress in learning (Taber, 2010 ). Models of atomic and molecular structure, mathematical models, notions of ideal gases, typologies (such as metal and non-metal, types of bonding), metaphorical language (sharing electrons, electrophilic attack, etc.) and historically shifting concepts (oxidation, acid, etc.), and so forth, are ubiquitous, and much of this conceptual apparatus has become second nature for the teacher - for whom, subjectively, a double bond has likely become as real an object as a conical flask. Supporting students to develop the epistemological sophistication to make sense of the concepts of chemistry, and to keep in mind the ontological status of the ‘objects’ they meet in their studies (e.g., dative bonds, electron deficient compounds, anti-aromaticity, transition states, hybridised atomic orbitals …) is a key challenge for the CER community (Taber, 2019a ). Models and modelling in science and teaching is certainly an important theme across SER (Gilbert, 2004 ), but has proved especially vexing in chemistry teaching, and would seem a clear imperative for research in CER.

CER as a scientific research field

There are many recognised academic fields across the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities and arts. Education as an academic subject is something of a scavenger - founded on other subjects (usually considered to include philosophy, history, psychology and sociology, and these days increasingly economics), intimately tied with the wide range of disciplines that are found in curriculum (such as, inter alia, chemistry), and regularly borrowing ideas and perspectives widely from other areas of the academy. Educational research is often considered essentially social science, but the diversity of research and scholarship carried out in some education faculties spans a full range from pure experiments to literary criticism.

Chemistry education is clearly not a natural science as it focuses on social, not natural, phenomena, but scholars working in CER generally consider they are seeking to be scientific in their work. In natural sciences, such as chemistry, research traditions develop where researchers are inducted into the norms of the research field, and mature traditions of work can be characterised by a disciplinary matrix (Kuhn, 1970 , 1974/1977 ) that can include ontological commitments (e.g., matter is comprised of sub-microscopic quanticles) and epistemological and methodological standards (such the forms of laboratory technique and analysis considered suitable in a line of work) as well as conventions relating to how arguments should be presented, use of technical vocabulary and specialised forms of representation, and such matters as which journals and conferences are appropriate targets for research outputs.

Compared with chemistry, CER admits a wide range of theoretical perspectives (deriving from the learning sciences, sociology, etc.) and methodological approaches. That could be considered a sign of a lack of maturity in the field, but could also, alternatively, reflect the complexity, and context-dependence, of the core phenomena of teaching and learning (Taber, 2014 ). There are guidelines on what makes educational research scientific (National Research Council Committee on Scientific Principles for Educational Research, 2002 ) which acknowledge the diversity of approaches possible, subject to meeting quality criteria in terms of research design and execution.

One helpful idea from history and philosophy of science is the observation that research in natural science disciplines such as chemistry becomes organised into research programmes (RP) that have inherent and explicit core commitments (to what is to be taken for granted; to what classes of research questions are to be addressed) shared by researchers working in that tradition, and which provide sufficient commonality to allow work from different scholars and research groups to iteratively build up a better understanding (Lakatos, 1970 ). These RP are not exclusive, in the sense that alternative parallel programmes taking different approaches to explore the same phenomena are possible, but the agreement on ‘hard core’ assumptions and research purposes allows those working within a particular RP to evaluate whether it remains a ‘progressive’ programme.

A progressive RP is one where empirical and theoretical work are feeding into each other to develop better understandings (as opposed to, for example, where theory is simply being adjusted after the fact to ‘save the phenomena’ as empirical tests fail to demonstrate predicted outcomes). Within this model, the scientist may sometimes ‘quarantine’ anomalous results (Lakatos, 1970 ), that is, acknowledge they challenge current theory, but choose to put this aside as a problem to be addressed later - something a strictly falsificationalist model (Popper, 1989 ) would not allow - against a global judgement that the programme is, on balance , making progress.

Striking a balance in structuring CER as a field

The historian of science Thomas Kuhn ( 1959/1977 ) referred to the ‘essential tension’ in science between (a) the priority of the established research traditions (a priority often reflected in academic appointments and promotions and, in particular, awards of research grants), which require scientists to be disciplined in following lines of work that have previously been found fruitful, and (b) the importance of the creative insight which, recognising which anomalies are potentially significant, enables a completely new conceptualisation that might revolutionise a field. Hegemony can be an impediment to progress in science (Josephson, 1992 ), just as elsewhere, but even if the creative research scientist adopts something of the mentality of bricolage, seeking to find what works in relation to a new problem (Feyerabend, 1975/1988 ; Kincheloe, 2005 ), scientific fields are largely characterised by structured research programmes.

The present author’s experience of having edited a research journal dedicated to CER for over 7 years suggests that anyone reviewing CER today would find considerable diversity in (a) the specific foci of research, (b) theoretical perspectives used to conceptualise that research, and (c) methodological strategies and tactics adopted (e.g., Teo, Goh, & Yeo, 2014 ). It is clearly important that CER remains open to new ideas, new insights, new directions of research (Sevian, 2017 ), but there is also a case to be made for adopting a more programmatic approach that allows studies to share sufficient groundwork to build iteratively on each other (Taber, 2017 ).

Recommendations for the field

The danger I have sought to highlight in this article, is that CER may largely be (or become) a label for education research studies that are either only addressing general questions and happen to be undertaken in CTLC, or embedded studies that address specifics of teaching and learning particular chemistry content, but which are tied to teaching that topic, at that academic level, with limited scope for generalisation beyond the specific context.

Two recommendations that follow from the analysis are offered here. The first is to encourage work that is ‘inherent’ CER because it addresses issues especially, indeed essentially, important across teaching chemistry. The second relates to identifying the programmes of work that link to the major challenges that arise in teaching and learning chemistry.

Identifying inherent CER

I have already mentioned two examples reflecting major challenges faced by practitioners: the so-called ‘chemist’s triplet’ and the ubiquity of models in teaching and learning chemistry. I briefly revisit these, and suggest another related focus for research attention (chemical explanations).

Applying the chemist’s triplet

One important RP concerns understanding how the core CER notion of the chemist’s triplet can be used to better conceptualise learning difficulties and plan curriculum and teaching. Johnstone ( 1982 ) highlighted how the triplet put a burden on students, but the nature of chemistry suggests that authentic chemistry education needs to often simultaneously employ the three aspects of the triplet. There is a good deal of groundwork in this area (Gilbert & Treagust, 2009 ), but it is questionable whether this has yet fed widely into informing classroom practice.

Johnstone’s initial characterisation of three levels has the elegance of a simple formulation that teachers can readily appreciate and relate to. Most commonly, the triplet is understood in terms of Johnstone’s ( 1982 ) original macroscopic and submicrosopic (as well as the symbolic representational) levels, but Talanquer ( 2011 , p. 180) emphasises the contrast between the ‘descriptive and functional’ level “at which phenomena are experienced, observed and described” and the ‘explanatory’ level “at which phenomena are explained”. A slightly different reconceptualisation sees the phenomena observed (and often perceived by learners in relation to everyday ideas, e.g., burning, disappearing) to be re-described both at the macroscopic level in terms of technical chemical concepts and categories (e.g., combustion: reaction with oxygen, dissolving), and then in terms of the explanatory models of the structure of matter at the submicroscopic / nanoscale (Taber, 2013a ). In this version, the symbolic is not seen as a discrete level, but as representing, and sometimes bridging explanations across, the two levels of chemical description. As these brief accounts suggest, there are different ways the ‘levels’ – and how they link to models, theories, and explanations - can be understood. There is clearly scope for more enquiry into how these ideas can best support chemistry teaching.

Making sense of models and representations

The second issue concerns the high frequency of models and related devices (e.g., metaphors) met in learning chemistry. Again, an authentic chemistry education (that reflects the disciplinary practices of the subject) cannot proceed by excluding these, so work is needed to support learners in developing more ‘epistemological nous’ (for example, not seeing atomic models as realistic) and applying metacognition to critically examine their learning (e.g., asking critically what does ‘sharing’ electrons mean?) Perhaps, teachers might initially question the wisdom here, but we would recognise progress when students come to regularly respond to teaching by asking difficult questions such as (i) how can the particles be touching in a solid when the spaces between them change with heating or cooling; (ii) why do the protons in a nucleus not repel each other so much that the nucleus disintegrates; (iii) in what sense, exactly, is a methane molecule a tetrahedron (Taber, 2019a )?

Explanation

Another potential focus for productive research is the theme of explanations, and this might be an area that could be linked to the developing focus on learning progressions in chemistry (Sevian & Talanquer, 2014 ). Explanation is core to chemistry (and often links to the triplet, and to the various models used in the subject).

In recent years there has been considerable focus on the process of scientific argumentation and how this can be modelled in teaching (Erduran, Simon, & Osborne, 2004 ; Newton, Driver, & Osborne, 1999 ). However the related, and equally core, notion of explanation has had much less attention, with very little work looking at the nature of students’ explanations (Taber & Watts, 2000 ) or how students can critique or construct explanations (Taber, 2007 ). This would seem to be an important area where there is much potential for useful research. Ideally this might be the focus of learning progression research (Alonzo & Gotwals, 2012 ), to first explore typical levels of student competencies at different grades, and then to inform curriculum design and teaching that can support progression.

Responding to key challenges in chemistry education

There are many other potential areas of work in CER that can increase our understanding and so better support teaching. Probably the two biggest challenges to chemistry education, especially where chemistry is not an elective subject but one all students are expected to study, relate to relevance and difficulty.

Making chemistry relevant to all

Chemistry is obviously (to a chemist) relevant to everything around us in the material world, but, as a science, chemistry is concerned with substances and their properties and interactions - and that is already an abstraction when very few of the materials young people come into contact with in everyday life are pure substances. There is a challenge therefore to make chemistry relevant (Eilks & Hofstein, 2015 ). One response might be not to teach chemistry as such in the lower grades (e.g., up to age 12 or 13?), but rather a form of material science that would be more context-based (Bennett, Hogarth, & Lubben, 2003 ) and enquiry-based (Schwab, 1962 ) - possibly linked to environmental and socio-scientific issues (Zeidler, 2014 ) - and which would provide both practical experience and background knowledge to be used as the foundations of a formal study of chemistry in later grades.

Another suggestion (perhaps once students progress to those later grades) is to use practical work as a means of introducing phenomena to be explored and explained, and so to provide epistemic relevance to the concepts of chemistry (Taber, 2015 ), given that more traditional approaches teach scientific concepts that are in effect answers to historical questions that most students have never had reason to ask. This might be a less efficient (i.e., slower) approach to teaching canonical concepts, but may be a more authentic reflection of chemistry as science, and a way of engaging students’ imaginations to develop rich conceptualisations that may ultimately offer better foundations for learning canonical models and theories.

• Scaffolding learning

That chemistry is a highly theoretical subject, as well as a laboratory subject, makes the introduction of a good deal of abstract material that many students find challenging, unavoidable. There is already a great deal of work exploring aspects of learners’ difficulties in understanding chemical concepts, and in particular their alternative conceptions and frameworks in the subject (Kind, 2004 ), and why these conceptions occur (Taber, 2002 , 2019a ). There is also work on supporting teachers by providing classroom diagnostic tools to identify student thinking (Treagust, 2006 ). Yet there is more to do, especially in supporting teachers to adopt research-informed teaching within existing curriculum and institutional constraints.

One notion that has been adopted in school teaching is that of ‘scaffolding’ as a strategy for supporting learners to master challenging ideas or skills. In practice, however, this sometimes amounts to little more than applying such common pedagogic tactics as breaking complex material down, offering students support in the form of hand-outs and hints, or expecting group-work to provide sufficient peer support. The idea of scaffolding, however, derives from a particular perspective based on the works of Vygotsky ( 1978 ), that offers potential for providing more customised, individualised, support for students given sufficient information about their particular characteristic as learners (Taber, 2018c ). In principle, then, scaffolding could be a very powerful strategy, but needs to be applied in relation to both the particular learners and subject matter. Research to explore how viable the approach is when used by busy teachers with large classes could be very valuable, but also challenging to carry out.

Conclusions

Space here does not allow the development or augmentation of these examples, but hopefully they sufficiently make the point: for CER to progress as a field (i) it needs to take as strong foci the particular issues of teaching and learning chemistry , that is, those issues that are specific, or especially pronounced, or at least need to be understood within particular contexts, in the practice of chemistry teaching; and (ii) there needs to be a programmatic flavour to much of the work undertaken - to enable ready communication between researchers; to facilitate studies to clearly build iteratively on what has gone before; and to allow the CER community to make evaluations of which lines of work are progressive, and so worthy of attention and resourcing.

This is not an argument for a ‘closed-shop’ with exclusive programmes of research, nor for excluding the maverick or idiosyncratic from the field. CER benefits from cross-fertilisation with other disciplines, and the ‘essential tension’ needs to be held in balance. This article is certainly not suggesting a need for a regimentation of research moderated by intellectual thought police, but rather that those leading the field should offer heuristic guidance to channel the most promising directions for enquiry. For any field to remain viable there must be a semblance of structure and order perceived as standing out from the background of diverse activity. CER is not a field of chemistry in the way that transition metal chemistry is, or organometallic chemistry is, or photochemistry is: its primary phenomena are social and psychological (teaching, learning), not chemical.

This can present challenges for CER researchers. For those transitioning from exclusively undertaking research in the natural sciences, this can require a substantive reorientation in relation to both the nature of knowledge claims and the kinds of approaches that need to be applied. As two obvious differences: natural materials subject to investigation in the chemistry laboratory neither expect a duty of care from researchers (we do not need to take precautions to protect the integrity of strips of magnesium or aliquots of sulphuric acid that are subject to laboratory manipulations), nor change their properties in response to being selected as the sample to be tested or because they suspect they know what the researcher is looking for. By contrast, people are entitled to expect researchers to both avoid doing anything likely to harm them (which includes disrupting their learning), and to take their preferences (such as declining to participate) into account; and may also have their attitudes and motivations (and so their responses) modified by the attention of researchers and/or tacitly communicated researcher expectations (Taber, 2019b ).

For those based in chemistry or other natural science departments, another challenge can be the attitudes and perceptions of colleagues. The norms of CER may not be appreciated by colleagues with no background in research in the social sciences, which are often considered to be ‘softer’ (and so by implication less rigorous or demanding) than the ‘hard’ sciences. Commitment to CER enquiries may not always be accepted as a valid alternative to chemistry research, especially in a context where university research is evaluated along disciplinary lines and CER publications are considered ‘education’ rather than ‘chemistry’ outputs.

For CER to count as ‘disciplinary’ research it needs to be an identifiable discipline in its own right and not simply borrow credence from being associated with the discipline of chemistry. I hope this article has offered some ideas regarding how this can be maintained and developed in practice.

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Abbreviations

Chemistry education research

Chemistry teaching and learning contexts

Pedagogical content knowledge

Physics education research

Research programmes

Science education research

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics

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Research and Practice in Chemistry Education

Advances from the 25th IUPAC International Conference on Chemistry Education 2018

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Table of contents (15 chapters)

Front matter, introduction.

Gwendolyn A. Lawrie

Revisiting the Understanding of Redox Reactions Through Critiquing Animations in Variance

• Sevil Akaygun, Emine Adadan

Reframing Chemistry Learning: The Use of Student-Generated Contexts

• Edwehna Elinore S. Paderna, Rosanelia T. Yangco, Marlene B. Ferido

Interactive Immersive Virtual Reality to Enhance Students’ Visualisation of Complex Molecules

• Mihye Won, Mauro Mocerino, Kok-Sing Tang, David F. Treagust, Roy Tasker

Faculty Motivation for Scholarly Teaching and Innovative Classroom Practice—An Empirical Study

• Zakiya S. Wilson-Kennedy, Liuli Huang, Eugene Kennedy, Guoqing Tang, Margaret I. Kanipes, Goldie S. Byrd

Lessons Learnt from Teaching and Learning During Disruptions

• Marietjie Potgieter, Lynne A. Pilcher, Rethabile R. Tekane, Ina Louw, Lizelle Fletcher

Bridging the Gap Between Philosophy of Science and Student Mechanistic Reasoning

• Nicole Graulich, Ira Caspari

Assessing for Chemical Thinking

• Vicente Talanquer

Assessment of Practical Chemistry in England: An Analysis of Scientific Methods Assessed in High-Stakes Examinations

• Sibel Erduran, Alison Cullinane, Stephen John Wooding

Deciphering Students’ Thinking on Ionisation Energy: Utilising a Web-Based Diagnostic Instrument

• Kim Chwee Daniel Tan, Keith S. Taber, Yong Qiang Liew, Kay Liang Alan Teo

A Longitudinal View of Students’ Perspectives on Their Professional and Career Development, Through Optional Business Skills for Chemists Modules, During Their Chemistry Degree Programme

• Samantha Louise Pugh

RAw Communications and Engagement (RACE): Teaching Science Communication Through Modular Design

• Martin McHugh, Sarah Hayes, Aimee Stapleton, Felix M. Ho

Constructive Alignment Beyond Content: Assessing Professional Skills in Student Group Interactions and Written Work

• Renée Cole, Gil Reynders, Suzanne Ruder, Courtney Stanford, Juliette Lantz

Students’ Perceptions of Group Communication Skills in an Active Learning Environment

• Alexandra Yeung, Suzanne Ahern

Improving the Assessment of Transferable Skills in Chemistry Through Evaluation of Current Practice

• Madeleine Schultz, Glennys O’Brien, Siegbert Schmid, Gwendolyn A. Lawrie, Daniel C. Southam, Samuel J. Priest et al.
• Secondary-tertiary Transition Chemistry
• Tertiary Chemistry Education
• Assessment of Chemistry Understanding Using Technology
• Predictors of Student Success in Tertiary Chemistry
• Chemistry Visualisation
• Systems Thinking Climate Change
• Professional Development Tertiary Chemistry Teachers
• New Classroom Paradigms
• University Science Education
• Laboratory Teaching and Learning
• Active Learning in the Chemistry Classroom
• learning and instruction

About this book

This book brings together fifteen contributions from presenters at the 25th IUPAC International Conference on Chemistry Education 2018, held in Sydney. Written by a highly diverse group of chemistry educators working within different national and institutional contexts with the common goal of improving student learning, the book presents research in multiple facets of the cutting edge of chemistry education, offering insights into the application of learning theories in chemistry combined with practical experience in implementing teaching strategies. The chapters are arranged according to the themes novel pedagogies, dynamic teaching environments, new approaches in assessment and professional skills – each of which is of substantial current interest to the science education communities.

Providing an overview of contemporary practice, this book helps improve student learning outcomes. Many of the teaching strategies presented are transferable to other disciplines and are of great interest to the global community of tertiary chemistry educators as well as readers in the areas of secondary STEM education and other disciplines.

Editors and Affiliations

Madeleine Schultz

Siegbert Schmid

About the editors

Bibliographic information.

Book Title : Research and Practice in Chemistry Education

Book Subtitle : Advances from the 25th IUPAC International Conference on Chemistry Education 2018

Editors : Madeleine Schultz, Siegbert Schmid, Gwendolyn A. Lawrie

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6998-8

Publisher : Springer Singapore

eBook Packages : Education , Education (R0)

Copyright Information : Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019

Hardcover ISBN : 978-981-13-6997-1 Published: 18 April 2019

eBook ISBN : 978-981-13-6998-8 Published: 06 April 2019

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : VIII, 274

Number of Illustrations : 23 b/w illustrations, 31 illustrations in colour

Topics : Science Education , Curriculum Studies , Learning & Instruction , Chemistry/Food Science, general

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Journal of Chemistry: Education Research and Practice

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Mohammed Mahmoud Hwehy , M.Sc. Analytical Chemistry Environmental researcher, Air quality department Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency, Cairo, Egypt

Ashutosh Mishra , PhD Research Professor (Brain Pool Fellow), School of Integrated Technology Yonsei University, Incheon, South Korea

Rodrigo Rodolfo Gonz , PhD Editor-in-Chief Professor, ournal of Chemistry: Education Research and Practice(JCERP) Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico

Neeraj Kumar , Ph.D Director General, Mechanical engineering Delhi institute of Technology and Management NH-1 Ganaur sonipat , Haryana , India

Journal of Chemistry: Education Research and Practice is a leading International Journal for the publication of high-quality articles. It is devoted to publish a wide range of outstanding Reviews, Communications, Full papers, Perspectives, Minireviews, Comments, and Replies from all areas of chemistry, several major sub-disciplines, cross-disciplinary and more specialized fields of chemistry Journal of Chemistry: Education Research and Practice provides an excellent platform for Eminent Scientists, Faculty (Professors, Associate Professors, Asst. Professors) in the fields of Chemistry and Pharma, Training Institutes, Chemists, Biochemists, Pharmaceutical and Chemical Companies and Industries, Pharma Manufacturing and Production Companies, Medical Devices Companies, PhD Scholars, Graduates and Post Graduates, Directors and CEO’s of Organizations by providing critical analysis of new data, mix of fundamental, technology-oriented, experimental and computational original research and reviews, latest cutting-edge research findings and results about all aspects of chemistry. It welcomes the publication of scientific research papers in the fields of Theoretical and Physical Chemistry, Analytical and Inorganic Chemistry, Organic and Biological Chemistry, Applied and Materials Chemistry, Spectroscopy, Chemical physics, Biological, Medicinal, Environmental chemistry, Biochemistry, Petroleum and Petrochemicals, Materials science, Nuclear chemistry, Polymer chemistry, Pharmacognosy & Phytochemistry, Stereochemistry and Clinical chemistry Journal of Chemistry: Education Research and Practice aims to increase the visibility of Experts in Pharma & Chemistry and the best research contributions from authors across the globe. NOW! SHARE your INSIGHTS

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