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This is the published version of a paper published in Kemivärlden Biotech med Kemisk Tidskrift.
Citation for the original published paper (version of record):
Broman, K. (2015)
Chemistry: context, content and choices: Is school chemistry in crisis?.
Kemivärlden Biotech med Kemisk Tidskrift, (1): 33-34
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Kemivärlden Biotech med Kemisk Tidskrift. Nr 1 February 2015 33
Several times I have been asked:
“Why is chemistry so difficult?” I always try to respond: “Is it really difficult or is it perceived to be dif- ficult?” What makes something difficult?
In my eyes, chemistry is no more difficult than many other things. My son creates amazing Lego constructions and my god- son is fantastic with a table tennis ball.
Why? Probably because they have spent so many hours with Lego bricks and table tennis rackets. Therefore, to answer the question why chemistry is perceived as difficult, perhaps one important issue is time - students need to spend more time doing chemistry. For my thesis (Broman, 2015), I asked almost 500 students in their last year of the Science Programme: How can we improve school chemistry to make
it more interesting and meaningful? The students were given 17 response options to choose from, and the least popular one was to spend less time in chemistry les- sons. On the contrary, they requested more connections to everyday life, and more practical work (Broman & Simon, 2014).
Following several years as an upper secon- dary chemistry teacher and teacher edu- cator at Umeå University, I had the opp- ortunity to start postgraduate education and to scrutinise Swedish upper secondary chemistry education. I had read so many negative reports about school chemistry, yet I met committed and positive students and teachers. I started off with two sur- vey studies into students’ opinions about their chemistry lessons. I found students
interested in chemistry, they enjoyed their chemistry lessons and emphasised the im- portance of good teachers. Their wish to connect chemistry to everyday life paved way for a focus on context-based learning approaches.
Context-based learning approaches have been introduced in several countries, for example Germany, the UK, the Nether- lands and the US, as a way to enhance students’ interest and motivation, de-em- phasise rote learning, and instead focus on meaningful learning. These learning approaches emanate from a “context” that connects the chemistry contents to every- day life, where the focus is on the relevan- ce of the context. Pharmaceuticals in the environment or the use of energy drinks
Chemistry:
Context, Content and Choices.
Is school chemistry in crisis?
[Karolina Broman, Umeå University, chair of the Section of Chemistry Education within the Swedish Chemical Society e-mail: karolina.broman@umu.se]
Introducing her thesis on chemistry education,
Karolina Broman highlights the need for positive role models.
Education
“When discussing why students found the tasks challenging, a common answer was that they were not familiar with tasks asking for more than just a short factual response.”
Kemivärlden Biotech med Kemisk Tidskrift. Nr 1 February 2015
34
among young people are examples of con- text-based chemistry, which are supposed to be relevant to upper secondary students.
The focal point for the context-based lear- ning approaches is that students have to consider what content knowledge they need to understand why drugs like Tamiflu can show up in sewage or to understand how the taurine molecule affects our body when we drink Red Bull. The hypothesis of con- text-based chemistry is that students who feel involved in their study are more eager to learn. The idea is not to avoid the con- tent knowledge; factual knowledge is the foundation for understanding the broader and more general issues, however the idea is to not settle for simple recall of facts.
The conventional approach to chemistry is often described as a ladder; students meet with one content area after another in a linear way but seldom climb down the ladder. Chemistry textbooks, at least at upper secondary or university level, start with the smallest particles, in other words the atom and then continue with the periodic table, stoichiometry, chemi- cal bonding, and finally organic chemistry and biochemistry.
Students mainly focus on rote memori- sation of factual knowledge even though for many years research within chemistry education has highlighted that school sci- ence should develop towards meaningful instead of rote learning (Osborne & Dil- lon, 2008).
This clear division of chemistry into restricted content areas often makes it difficult for students to see “the whole picture”. As opposed to a linear ladder, context-based courses can be compared to a spider’s web where the image is cho- sen based on the idea that you need to go back and forth to learn. The starting point for the context-based tasks investi- gated in my thesis is that real chemistry problems seldom have one single cor- rect answer.
The students stated this as being typical of school chemistry; there is always one correct answer that the teacher is looking for. Anyone with a more in-depth under- standing of chemistry would realise that this is nonsense. Chemical reactions and chemistry problems can almost always be explained in different ways.
There are several reasons why Tamiflu is spreading to the environment; you have to move around in the spider’s web to ex- plain why the drug is water-soluble, polar, and perhaps affected by pH!
I explored the opinions of students in the Science Programme regarding both school chemistry and the outcome of their chemistry studies. Through context-based chemistry tasks that they solved, both in writing and in think-aloud interviews, the students’ application of chemistry content knowledge when solving these tasks was analysed (Broman & Parchmann, 2014).
In general, the students appreciated the problems, and found them interesting, re- levant and challenging. When discussing why students found them challenging, a common answer was that they were not familiar with tasks asking for more than just a short factual response.
Young people of today are said to focus on building and developing their identity.
Even students who enjoy doing science often have problems seeing themselves as being scientists; the problem is not that students are uninterested in science, “but rather that the perceived values associated with science and technology do not match the values of contemporary youth” (Os- borne & Dillon, 2008, p. 17).
The perception of adolescence as a time for identity formation and making choi- ces about one’s future suggests a need to focus on questions about who students want to be rather than what they want to do. Even though chemistry as a subject can be perceived as interesting, the students generally did not self-identify as scientists or chemists or people who might become scientists or chemists. This inability to see oneself as a scientist (even among stu- dents who have chosen to study science!) may relate to the absence of appealing role models.
The results of Ulriksen et al. (2010), which showed that students often regard female university scientists in particular
as negative role models may be important in this context. Can this picture of women (and men) in academia be changed?
When discussing role models with the students for my thesis, medical doctors were generally perceived as good role models. When asked about why medical doctors were perceived as good role mo- dels, almost all pointed towards the TV show Grey’s Anatomy. Could it be that Dr Shepherd and Dr Grey are important role models for Swedish upper secondary students? And if so, are there any positive role models for chemistry? We probably all have to consider the image we convey to young people.
I hope to show them that chemistry is in- teresting, meaningful, relevant and exciting!
References:
Broman, K. (2015). Chemistry: Content, Con- text and Choices. Towards students’ higher or- der problem solving in upper secondary school.
Doctoral thesis. Umeå university.
Broman, K., & Parchmann, I. (2014). Stu- dents’ application of chemical concepts when solving chemistry problems in different con- texts. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 15(4), 516-529.
Broman, K., & Simon, S. (2014). Upper Se- condary School Students’ Choice and Their Ide- as on How to Improve Chemistry Education.
International Journal of Science and Mathema- tics Education. doi: 10.1007/s10763-014-9550-0 Osborne, J., & Dillon, J. (2008). Science Education in Europe: Critical Reflections. A Report to the Nuffield Foundation. London:
King´s College.
Ulriksen, L., Madsen, L. M., & Holmegaard, H. T. (2010). What do we know about explana- tions for drop out/opt out among young people from STM higher education programmes? Stu- dies in Science Education, 46(2), 209-244. KB ...or to understand how the taurine molecule affects our body when we drink Red Bull.”
Education
“Students have to consider what content knowledge they need to understand why drugs like Tamiflu can show up in sewage...
