This paper compares the performance of students at a high-performing U.S. public school (n = 64) on the advanced placement (AP) chemistry exam to their performance on the ChemQuery assessment system. The AP chemistry exam was chosen because, as the National Research Council acknowledges, it is the "perceived standard of excellence and school…

A comprehensive guided-inquiry approach was used in a combined organic and biochemistry course for prenursing and predietetics students rather than lecture. To assess its effectiveness, exam grades and final course grades of students in three instructional techniques were compared. The three groups were the following: (i) lecture only, (ii)…

The author provides a framework to help scholars in the field of higher education to be critical. Additionally, the author reflects and comments on the chapters included in this special volume. Finally, this chapter ends with a discussion of the opportunities and challenges of critical quantitative inquiry.

We describe an activity-based approach for teaching aqueous solubility to introductory chemistry students that provides a more balanced presentation of the roles of energy and entropy in dissolution than is found in most general chemistry textbooks. In the first few activities, students observe that polar substances dissolve in water, whereas…

Critical mixed methods approaches allow us to reflect upon the ways in which we collect, measure, interpret, and analyze data, providing novel alternatives for quantitative analysis. For institutional researchers, whose work influences institutional policies, programs, and practices, the approach has the transformative ability to expose and create…

Numbers of students of color enrolling in higher educational institutions is expected to increase across all racial groups. With continued increases in minority enrollments, minority-serving institutions have and will continue to play a major role in educating student of color. A large national data set was used to examine the numbers of…

This paper describes the rationale and the implementation of five laboratory experiments; four of them, intended for high-school students, are inquiry-based activities that explore the quality of water. The context of water provides students with an opportunity to study the importance of analytical methods and how they influence our everyday…

In a collaboration between the University of North Florida College of Education and Human Services and Sandalwood High School in Duval County, Florida, social studies and science education professors and a science teacher worked together to develop student understanding about the limited use of diesel-fueled cars in the United States when compared…

Synthesizing and testing bicomposite adsorbents for the removal of environmentally problematic oxy-anions is high on the agenda of research-led universities. Here we present a laboratory module successfully developed at Imperial College London that introduces the advanced undergraduate student in engineering (chemical, civil, earth) and science…

An instructional laboratory curriculum for a first-semester introductory organic chemistry course has been developed using microwave-assisted organic synthesis (MAOS). Taking advantage of short reaction times, materials were developed to facilitate collaborative experimental design, analysis, and debriefing of results during the normal laboratory…

The design and construction of an apparatus to measure the optical birefringence of a liquid crystal is described. The instrument also includes temperature control and monitoring circuitry to allow for the measurement of the nematic-to-isotropic phase transition temperature. An important feature of this design is that the students are able to…

All pH calculations for simple acid-base systems used in introductory courses on general or analytical chemistry can be carried out by using a general procedure requiring the use of predominance diagrams. In particular, the pH is calculated as the sum of an independent term equaling the average pK[subscript a] values of the acids involved in the…

When adults enter university after several years of work and life experience, they must negotiate their identity as mature students and their friendship with other students. In this interpretative study, I examined the tensions experienced by 15 such students (aged 28-54) at a university in Ireland where they were attempting to integrate…

Based on emotional response theory (ERT), recent researchers have observed connections between teachers' communication behaviors and students' emotional reactions. In the present study, we further elaborated ERT by exploring the effects of teacher communication behaviors and emotional processes on discrete negative emotions, including…

Student success, accountability, and educational outcomes have been strongly emphasized in U.S. community colleges in recent years. For those individuals serving in community college student affairs, intentional commitment to standards and competencies in professional practice is essential in order to achieve institutional expectations and to meet…