Designing a Blended Undergraduate General Chemistry Course
Using the ARCS Model
Yoshimichi Oikawa
Tokai University / Kumamoto University, Japanoikawa@tokai-u.jp
Ryuichi Matsuba
Kumamoto University, Japanmatsuba@kumamoto-u.ac.jp
Toshihiro Kita
Kumamoto University, Japankita@ield.kumamoto-u.ac.jp

Koji Nakajima
Osaka Gakuin University / Kumamoto University,Japannakajima@ogu.ac.jp
Katsuaki Suzuki
Kumamoto University, Japanksuzuki@kumamoto-u.ac.jp
Hiroshi Nakano
Kumamoto University, Japannakano@cc.kumamoto-u.ac.jp

Abstract: The ARCS model is one of the representative instructional-design theories. We applied thismodel to design a general chemistry course that was conducted as the blended learning. The course isoffered to students of physics, mathematics and mathematical science. Firstly, we designed a framework of
instruction and contents in accordance with the ARCS model containing preparation and review, andevaluated it by the questionnaire that was related to the four categories of the ARCS model. After that, we
improved methodology and course contents by the results of the questionnaire, and applied them to ourgeneral chemistry course of Tokai University. We have had a continuous improvement in the learningmaterials with the results of the questionnaire taken in the last semester. We got 4.5 points of student
evaluation witch was higher than that of the last year by 0.6 in five points scale. Seventy nine percent ofrespondents felt that the course had relevance to them. The attitude survey for the students who took acredit of the course shows that the interest for the chemistry tended to increase. But there was no significant
difference among the amount of document and the average score of the written examination.

Keywords: ARCS Model, Course Design, Chemical Education, Blended Learning

INTRODUCTION
One of the educational goals of Tokai University is development of human resource with a problem
solving abilities. To acquire knowledge and ability to take a broad view of things is indispensable to achieve thisgoal. But most of our students had had limited interest about knowledge outside their major. For improving thissituation, we decided to open several new courses for science students to provide opportunity to learn otherspecialties of science on the occasion of the curriculum reform in 2011.
We developed a general chemistry course and it has been opened for students majoring in science except
for chemistry major. Students taking the course are poor at chemistry, hence we thought that increasing motivation
was important for these student's learning, so we decided to apply the ARCS model in designing our course.
The ARCS model (Keller, 1983) is one of the representative instructional-design theories that present aclassification of motivational concepts into the four categories of attention (A), relevance (R), confidence (C), andsatisfaction (S). This model has been considered a systematic and easy-to-apply model for designing motivational
instruction (Shellnut, Knowlton & Savage 1999; Song & Keller 1999). The model was applied chemical education,
but in this study, the ARCS model was only applied to design activities in a classroom (Sung & Hsiao 2005).
The average amount of time a university student studying out of classes is only 39.2 minutes per day inJapan recently (National Federation of University Co-operative Association [NFUCA] 2013a, 2013b). As a
viewpoint of quality assurance of student learning outcomes, this situation has to be improved. We therefore tried todesign the course including preparation and review.

PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY
The purpose of this study is threefold: first to develop a general chemistry course designed with the ARCS
model, second to apply it to the practical lecture and third to evaluate how learning in the course influences student's
attitude toward chemistry.

METHOD
Designing framework of the course
The Topic Titles in Syllabus
According to journal author academy of Springer (n.d.), the title of manuscript is usually the first
introduction readers have to published work, therefore, an author must select a title that grabs attention, accurately
describes the contents of the manuscript, and makes people want to read further. We thought that this point of view
was common to a lecture title. A syllabus is the first introduction to learners. Therefor, selecting a title of lecture isimportant for grabbing attention of students. In the ARCS model, attention is an important aspect for attracting
learners. However, many of topic titles in the syllabus were traditional and never grab student's attention. Whiledesigning our course, firstly we started to improve each topic title.
The comparison of our topic titles and common ones were shown in Table 1. We adopted titles impressiveor appealing to learner's interest.

Table 1: Comparison of topic titles between a common course and our course of
introductory chemistry.
A Common Course
Our Course
Matter and Atom
Magnify! Magnify!
Gas Law
How elastic!
Liquid and Solution
If it is cooked in a pressure cooker...
Equilibrium
Going back and forth
Stoichiometry
What is measurement?
Chemical Formula
The language is important.
Amount of Substance
A world on a spoon.
EnergyWhere does the heat come from?
Acid and BaseCut off the cause of the fish's smell!
Redox Reaction
Rusting
Organic Chemistry
What is organic?
Environmental Chemistry
Let's talk about environment.

Preparation
As we mentioned introduction section, we tried to design a lecture including preparation and review. We
designed the functions of the preparation as grabbing attention, narrowing directionality of student's interest andchecking one's prior knowledge. We thought that a problem (quiz, thinking about a video content, etc.) provided in
the preparation is good chance for us to let students attend to a lecture.
Increasing the students' motivation to continue a participation in a lecture is an important issue of ourcourse design. The low motivation student was apt to absence from a lecture and the lack of motivation is also one of
the factors of dropping out from school (Woodley & Parlett 1983).
The course was offered to students of physics, mathematics and mathematical science. This groupcomposition was going to make it difficult for us to relate our lecture to their interest because the directionality of theinterest differed depending on their major. We thought that thinking about the same problem and sharing theiranswer can narrow the directionality of the interest. Therefore we decided to offer the problem for preparations to thestudent on the LMS (Learning Management System), and to let them write in their answer at bulletin board systembefore a lecture. This approach also included the encouraging of the voluntary learning of the student out of thelecture.
As Keller (2010) described that people tend to be most interested in content that has some connections totheir prior experiences and interests, we kept it in mind so that we made the contents of the problem familiar with
their daily life.
Relationship between the strategy that we designed as student activity and the category of the ARCS
model was shown in Table 2.
LectureA lecture of the course was conducted in computer room. Each lecture time was 90 minutes, and there wasonce per week and were 15 weeks for one semester. All text and materials were provided on the LMS that isaccessible from the Internet, therefor students were able to use them out of the lecture.
In the introduction phase of the lecture, the professor added explanatory notes to some answers or
opinions for the problem of the preparation by projecting them on the front screen in the classroom. Then thestudents rethought the problem through discussion and wrote their answer or opinion to the bulletin board again. Thismethod was used everywhere of the lecture, because it was necessary for the student to participate in the lecture
positively.
In the evolving phase, the professor explained knowledge and skills for solving a chemical problem byusing digital materials such as digital slide, video, simulator and digital text. The variation of instruction method isuseful for grabbing attention continuously. In the ARCS model, this factor is categorized into variability. Of course
our class carried out a real experiment because true experience is important in chemical education. Quizzes were also
used in the lecture. The results of the quizzes were projected on the screen in real time. A proper graded quiz will
give student an opportunity to get success opportunities and natural consequences.
In the conclusion phase, students rethought and answered the question given in the introduction phase. We
thought that the student could easily recognize own change by the comparison of answers for thesame question. For encouraging learning, the professor gave positive comments to the final answers. In some
lecture, students really conducted experiment and evaluated its result. Keller (2010) described one of the mostrewarding results of performance-oriented instruction is to use newly acquired skills or knowledge. The experimentof the student is related natural consequences in the ARCS model.
Review
It is important for the learning process that students reflect what they learned. As we mentioned in the
introduction section, the average amount of time a university student studying out of classes is only 39.2 minutes perday. It is too short to reflect own learning. In our course, student had to summarize what they learned in a lecture andhad to send it as a report. Furthermore, students had to send a report their unclarified issue or what they wereinterested in newly. The professor evaluated these reports uploaded on the LMS and gave the feedback on the report.
Participants
The student configurations were shown in Table 3. Freshman, sophomore and junior attended the course
together. Most students were poor at chemistry.

Table 2: A framework of the general chemistry course and relation to categories of the ARCS
model.
Related categories of thePhasesStudents Activity
ARCS model
A1: Perceptual arousal
Writing one’s opinion or question at the electric bulletin
A2: Inquiry arousal
board.
R1: Familiarity
Preparation
R1: Familiarity
Checking the prior knowledge.
R2: Goal orientation
Checking other opinions or questions on the electric
R1: Familiarity
bulletin board with colleagues.
R2: Goal orientation
Introduction
Recognition of purpose of the lecture.
R2: Goal orientation
Writing answer or opinion at the electric bulletin board.
C1: Learning requirements
R2: Goal orientation
Watching demonstration or experiment
R3: Motive Matching
Evolving
R3: Motive Matching
LectureAnswer quizzes
C2: Success opportunities
Rethinking and writing new answers at electric bulletin
S1: Natural Consequences
board.
Get positive comments form professor and colleagues.
S2: Positive Consequences
Conclusion
A1: Perceptual arousal
Estimation of the result of experiment that related theA2: Inquiry arousal
lecture or the problem.
S1: Natural Consequence
S1: Natural Consequence
Send a report about the reflection of the lecture.
S2: Positive Consequence
Review
R2: Goal orientation
Send a report one’s unclarified issue and study result of
R3: Motive Matchingit.
C3: Personal Control
Table 3: Number of students that attended the general chemistry course and of valid
responses of the questionnaire provided by Tokai University.
Year
2011
2012
SemesterSpringFall
SpringFall
Mathematics
2
415
5Mathematical
Major of student
29
5
5
6
SciencePhysics2
3
16
12
The number of valid responses
30
7
28
21
Questionnaires and Evaluation
We used three questionnaires for evaluation and improvement of the course. The first questionnaire
included questions related to the ARCS model. It was carried out on the LMS at the end of each lecture. The second
one was the unified questionnaire provided by our university (Tokai University) for improvement of the lectures that
was anonymously carried out in the last lecture time for all courses and the results are opened to all students andstaffs. Two months after the course of 2012 was finished, the third questionnaire was carried out for all students whoearned credit of the course in 2011 and 2012 by sending e-mail that directs them to the questionnaire site. The third
one will be shown in detail later.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION
Surveys
The course topics as shown in Table 1 were decided on the agreement of the professors belonging to thedepartment of the target students. After that, we started to develop our lectures based on the framework that was
shown in Table 2. We decided the constitution of the lecture while being conscious of four motivation factors of the
ARCS model as much as possible. We conducted simple questionnaire and the interview at the end of each lecture,and the result of them was reflected to improving educational materials and methodology. This improvement
approach was continuously used in each semester. For evaluating of the improvement, we used the result of thesecond questionnaire that was mentioned in former section. If a comprehensive evaluation is an index to express thetotal satisfaction of the students, we thought that the evaluation score would rise with improvement.
The Average value of comprehensive evaluation in each semester was shown in Figure 1. A student
answered this evaluation with a 1-to-5 scale. Generally, the scores are tending to go up at smaller classes and only
seven students participated in the course of the fall semester of 2011. This is the main reason of which the value ofthe semester was particularly higher. The mean value of 3.9 of the spring semester in 2011 increased every semester,and it became 4.5 of the fall semester in 2012. This increase showed that our course was improved as expected. The
evaluation value was higher in comparison with other general chemistry courses. In case of 2012, the mean value ofothers (n=17) was 3.8. The result of fall semester’s survey in 2012, 79% students felt that the course had relevance tothem.

Average value of comprehensive evaluation

4.8
4.7
4.6
4.5
4.4
4.3
4.2
4.1
4
3.9
3.8
2011-Sprint

2011-Fall

2012-Spring

2012-Fall

SemesterFigure 1: Average value of comprehensive evaluation in each semester
The result of the third questionnaire or the attitude survey for the course was shown in Table 4 and Table
5. In these surveys, we contacted the student who has earned the course credit by e-mail and there were twelve
responders. The answer number of each question that related the preparation and the review was shown in Table 4.
These results show that the student has affirmed the preparation and the review. For the preparation, 42% (n=5) of
the responders agreed that the preparation attracted their interest more in the lecture or it increased their expectationsof the lecture. For the review, 50% (n=6) of the responders agreed that the review (reflection report) is helpful for
their learning, and 58% (n=7) of them felt that the review was helpful to get their confidences. Success opportunityand personal control are key factor to build learner’s confidence (Keller 1983). By making a problem by themselves,
students recognize that their learning is controlled by themselves. Even if the problem is self-made, the solving
experience will lead to success opportunity. We thought that these were the reasons why the confidence of thestudent is built by the review.

The Result of attitude survey was shown in Table 5. Questions in the survey were multiple-choice type.
After learning in the course, 58% of the responders came to be interested in chemistry related news, and 50% ofthem came to feel familiar with chemical knowledge. All students chose one of at least choices, and it was suggested
that the course influenced the change of student’s attitude to the chemistry.
The review
Some of the students did not send the review reports and failed the course. These students got low scoresof the examination, and the amount of words on their answer sheet was shorter than that of the credit-earned students.
We found that there is a weak relation between the amount of words in the review reports and that in the examination.
In the case of spring semester in 2012, the coefficient of correlation between the score of mid-term examination andthe mean word count in the review reports is 0.27. Therefore we decided to select student by focusing on the word
count of the review report and return feedback as soon as possible. As a result, amount of words in the examination
increased in fall semester of 2012.

Table 4: Questionnaire result about the preparation and the review
Number of answer
Statement
Agree
Disagree54321
Did the preparations attract your interest more in the lecture or
5
7
0
0
0
increase your expectation of the lecture?
Did the review (reflection report) help your learning?
6
5
1
0
0
Did the review increase your satisfaction for learning?
3
7
1
1
0
Did the review help to build your confidence?
7
5
0
0
0
Table 5: Questionnaire result about the change of the attitude toward chemistry after
this course study
Statement
Ratio (n)I came to be interested in chemistry-related books.
33% (4)
I came to be interested in chemistry-related news.
58% (7)
I came to want to learn other chemistry course.
17% (2)
I came to think that chemistry is interesting.
42% (5)
I came to feel familiar with chemical knowledge.
50% (6)

CONCLUSION
We designed our new general chemistry course for undergraduate students using the ARCS model andopened the practical course since the spring semester in 2011. The course design included not only lectures but also
preparations and reviews. For the evaluation of the course, we used results of three questionnaire surveys. The
comprehensive evaluation score of the course tended to increase by our continuous improvement.
The preparation for the lecture attracted student’s interest and increased their expectation of the lecture.
We found that the activity of making the preview report is helpful for student's learning and also is helpful to build
their confidence. The course tended to affect the student’s attitude toward chemistry. Fifty-eight percent of the
responders came to be interested in the chemistry-related news and 50% of the responders came to feel a familiarity
with chemical knowledge. We found that there is a weak relationship between the word count of the review report
and the achievement of each student.
In this study, the initial motivation of the students has not been evaluated. Hence, for a more thoroughstudy, the initial motivation will need to be evaluated in some way such as survey with Students’ Motivation toward
Science Learning questionnaire (SMTSL) (Tuan, Chin & Shieh 2005).
We used the results of the second questionnaire provided by Tokai University for improving lectures. The
result is available for the comparison with other similar courses, but it is not able to identify individual person's
answer because the questionnaire was conducted as anonymous one.
The word count of the review has weak correlation to student's achievement. This result suggests thatchecking the word count may predict student's achievement, and can be applied to detecting low-performing students

automatically at an early stage to prevent them from dropping out.
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