This qualitative study delves into the intricate landscape of general chemistry students' study strategy decision-making processes, examining the guiding factors that shape their choices. Past work in chemistry education has shown that students' study behaviors are dynamic in nature. Employing self-regulation theory, the study aims to provide a…

Organic chemistry presents a significant obstacle for students seeking entry into health-related professions. Students' ability to develop effective study approaches is an important predictor of success in the course. Herein, we report an investigation utilizing an OCH-adjusted M-ASSIST instrument to assess possible changes in students' study…

Internationalization of university curricula is the main reason why the number of bilingual teaching practices (BTPs) in university courses is on the rise around the world. This article reports the perceptions of this type of practice from 70 science students (43 females and 27 males, 17-24 years old) from a Colombian university. A questionnaire…

We present results of a two-semester study to gauge the impact of collaborative two-stage exams on student learning and attitudes in university-level introductory astronomy classes for non-science majors. In the collaborative two-stage exam setting, students first completed an exam individually, and then they reconsidered a subset of exam…

Research has demonstrated that academically successful students are effective, self-regulated learners. Moreover, exam wrapper interventions have been shown to foster the development of self-regulated learning behaviors on the part of college students. In this naturalistic, qualitative, and exploratory study, an exam wrapper intervention was…

Organic Chemistry is considered by many to be the quintessential "weeder course", widely identified in the premed and STEM persistence literature as a gatekeeper to students interested in STEM or health fields (Barr, Gonzalez, & Wanat, 2008; Lovecchio & Dundes, 2002). There has therefore been considerable interest in determining…

The mass shift to Open-Book, Open-Web (OBOW) assessments during the pandemic highlighted new opportunities in Higher Education for developing accessible, authentic assessments that can reduce administrative load. Despite a plethora of research emerging on the effectiveness of OBOW assessments within disciplines, few currently evaluate their…

Background: Productive learning processes and good learning outcomes can be attained by applying the basic elements of active learning. The basic elements include fostering discussions and disputations, facing alternative conceptions, and focusing on conceptual understanding. However, in the face of poor course retention and high dropout rates,…

This study used a series of text message inquiries sent to General Chemistry students asking: "Have you studied for General Chemistry I in the past 48 hours? If so, how did you study?" This method for collecting data is novel to chemistry education research so the first research goals were to investigate the feasibility of the technique…

The study reported here examines the learning approaches adopted by students enrolled in introductory chemistry at a public university. To evaluate learning approaches, a group of 61 students enrolled in the course were interviewed at three time-points during the semester, specifically to ascertain how they prepared for the exams. From these…

We introduce an interactive online resource for use by students and college instructors in introductory astronomy courses. The General Education Astronomy Source (GEAS) online tutor guides students developing mastery of core astronomical concepts and mathematical applications of general astronomy material. It contains over 12,000 questions, with…

The problem-solving strategies of students enrolled in general chemistry courses have been the subject of numerous research investigations. In most cases, the investigators were interested in the specific areas or concepts that posed the greatest difficulty to a student's success in achieving the correct answer. However, the investigation reported…

Students enter college exceedingly confident that they will earn high grades and engage themselves fully in their courses. However, students' grades and academic behaviors often do not match their expectations. This is especially true in introductory science courses, where grades and academic engagement are often low, even in courses taught by…

This text is designed to develop flexibility of reading techniques in college science students. Four basic steps useful in reading science textbooks and research reports are described and illustrated by using extracts from current college science textbooks. Each of the steps (exploration of document, vocabulary check, analysis for comprehension…