Investigating the impact of the timing of content introduction and self-efficacy on student performance in general chemistry
Authors:   , Howcroft Anthony Wilson , King Daniel B. , Wood Ezra 
Published: April 2024

General chemistry is a foundational course that most STEM students are required to take at some point in their academic careers, as such, thousands of students find themselves in a chemistry classroom every year. Students come into the classroom not only from different academic backgrounds but also from a variety of social and emotional backgrounds. My research aims to investigate student learning and performance through the lens of social cognitive theory and constructivist learning theory. Although all students come into the classroom at various levels, it is important that we understand how students perform and the impact that their socio-emotional domains, and cognitive domains have on success as the field looks to promote diversity, equity and inclusion for all students. The first investigation described in this dissertation was into the effect that the timing of content introduction had on student performance in general chemistry. We investigated if there was a difference in either in-class clicker performance or exam performance based upon when students were first introduced to the content: recitation or lecture. We observed that students who were introduced to content in recitation before lecture had a significantly higher overall clicker question and exam performance, at the 90% confidence level. We believe this difference in student performance may be because students who attend recitation before lecture had a chance to develop and construct a foundational understanding of the content prior to attending lecture. Regarding the social-emotional domain, the second project focused on how student self-efficacy changes throughout their first year of general chemistry. We investigated this change and have found that overall students' chemistry self-efficacy does change as they progress through their first-year chemistry course sequence. Perhaps most surprising is that this change is observed more readily among female students than male students and more for those who are majoring in biological sciences and health sciences than those majoring in engineering. These results indicate that as female students progress through their chemistry course sequence, they become more confident in their ability to understand, interpret, and communicate chemistry to others. To investigate how the cognitive domain and social-emotional domains are interconnected the third project investigated the relationships between performance and self-efficacy in first year general chemistry students. Our results found that students who increased in their self-efficacy performed statistically better regarding, average exam grade, final course grade and effort-based course components (p<0.05). These analyses also suggest that if students improve in their self-efficacy between the fall and winter terms, they have a greater likelihood of performing better in general chemistry overall in comparison to their classmates who decrease in self-efficacy between the fall and winter. To promote self-efficacy in students, the fourth project of this dissertation describes the implementation of an intervention aimed at educating students on self-efficacy, mindset and grit and encouraging reflection on these concepts. This intervention consisted of weekly mini lectures (5-10 minutes), in addition to 1-3 weekly clicker questions to encourage students to reflect on the resources they were likely to use. This study found that only students who received the intervention showed statistical improvement in their chemistry self-efficacy between the fall and winter terms of general chemistry (p<0.05). This suggests that it may be beneficial to intentionally design courses that cultivate classrooms which encourage students to think about how they view their own intelligence and learning, so they can more readily take control of their own learning.