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ERIC Number: EJ1443302
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023-May
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0021-9584
EISSN: EISSN-1938-1328
Identifying Chemistry Students' Baseline Systems Thinking Skills When Constructing System Maps for a Topic on Climate Change
Alisha R. Szozda; Peter G. Mahaffy; Alison B. Flynn
Journal of Chemical Education, v100 n5 p1763-1776 2023
New resources have recently been emerging for educators to implement systems thinking (ST) in chemistry education, including a proposed set of ST skills. While these efforts aim to make ST implementation easier, little is known about how to assess these skills in a chemistry context. In this study, we investigated ST skills employed by students who constructed system maps of a topic related to climate change. Eighteen undergraduate chemistry students from first- to third-year participated in this study. We designed and implemented a ST intervention to capture how students engaged with three ST tasks, performed individually and collaboratively. In our analysis, we focused on 11 ST skills that aligned with five characteristics proposed in a recent study. We found that participants demonstrated most of these ST skills when engaging with the ST tasks, with nuances. Participants' system maps:(1) lacked concepts and connections at the submicroscopic level; (2) included multiple types of connections but few circular loops and causal connections; (3) lacked causal reasoning, although participants did predict how their system maps changed over time; (4) demonstrated the breadth of connections but did not describe human connections to the underlying chemistry of climate change topics. These findings identify aspects of ST where chemistry educators need to place emphasis when teaching ST skills to chemistry students and when guiding learning activities and other assessments. Using our findings, we created an adaptable ST rubric for the chemistry community as a tool for assessing ST skills.
Division of Chemical Education, Inc. and ACS Publications Division of the American Chemical Society. 1155 Sixteenth Street NW, Washington, DC 20036. Tel: 800-227-5558; Tel: 202-872-4600; e-mail: eic@jce.acs.org; Web site: http://pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Canada (Ottawa)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A