Chemistry education

Chemistry Education (or, often, “Chemical Education”) is a comprehensive term that refers to topics related to the study or description of the teaching and learning of chemistry in schools, colleges and universities. Topics in chemistry education might include understanding how students learn chemistry, how best to teach chemistry, and how to improve learning outcomes by changing teaching methods and appropriate training of chemistry instructors, within many modes, including classroom lecture, demonstrations, and laboratory activities. There is a constant need to update the skills of teachers engaged in teaching chemistry, and so chemistry education speaks to this need.

There are at least four different philosophical perspectives that describe how the work in chemistry education is carried out. The first is what one might call a practitioner’s perspective, wherein the individuals who are responsible for teaching chemistry (teachers, instructors, professors) are the ones who ultimately define chemistry education by their actions.

A second perspective is defined by a self-identified group of chemical educators. Faculty members and instructors who, as opposed to declaring their primary interest in a typical area of laboratory research (organic, inorganic, biochemistry, etc), take on an interest in contributing suggestions, essays, observations, and other descriptive reports of practice into the public domain, through journal publications, books, and presentations. Dr. Robert L. Lichter, then-Executive Director of the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, speaking in a plenary session at the 16th Biennial Conference on Chemical Education (recent BCCE meetings: [1],[2]), posed the question “why do terms like ‘chemical educator’ even exist in higher education, when there is a perfectly respectable term for this activity, namely, ‘chemistry professor.’ One criticism of this view is that few professors bring any formal preparation in or background about education to their jobs, and so lack any professional perspective on the teaching and learning enterprise, particularly discoveries made about effective teaching and how students learn.

A third perspective is chemical education research (CER). Following the example of physics education research (PER), CER tends to take the theories and methods developed in pre-college science education research, which generally takes place in Schools of Education, and applies them to understanding comparable problems in post-secondary settings (in addition to pre-college settings). Like science education research, CER practitioners tends to study the teaching practices of others as opposed to focusing on their own classroom practices. Chemical Education research is typically carried out in situ using human subjects from secondary and post-secondary schools. Chemical education research utilizes both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. Quantitative methods typically involve collecting data that can then be analyzed using various statistical methods. Qualitative methods include interviews, observations, journaling, and other methods common to social science research.

Finally, there is an emergent perspective called The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). Although there is debate on how to best define SoTL, one of the primary practices is for mainstream faculty members (organic, inorganic, biochemistry, etc) to develop a more informed view of their practices, how to carry out research and reflection on their own teaching, and about what constitutes deep understanding in student learning.

Work in chemistry education, then, derives from some combination of these perspectives.

Chemistry education is an active area of research within both the disciplines of chemistry and education, focusing on learning and teaching of chemistry in schools, colleges and universities, with the goals of understanding how students learn chemistry, how best to teach chemistry, and how to improve learning outcomes by changing teaching methods and appropriate training of chemistry instructors, within many modes, including classroom lecture, demonstrations, and laboratory activities. There is a constant need to update the skills of teachers engaged in teaching chemistry.

Journals of Chemical Education

There are many journals of chemstry education, although most have a limited circulation in one country. Some concentrate on chemistry at different education levels (schools vs. universities) while others cover all education levels. Some of the most prominent are:

• Australian Journal of Education in Chemistry (journal home)

Published by the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and covering both School and University education.

• Chemistry Education Research and Practice (journal home)

Published by the Royal Society of Chemistry with an emphasis on University education.

• Education in Chemistry (journal home))

Published by the Royal Society of Chemistry with a covereage of all areas of chemical education.

• Journal of Chemical Education (journal home)

Published by the American Chemical Society and covering both School and University education.

• List of scientific journals in chemistry may have others before they are listed here.
• Much research in chemistry education is also published in journals in the wider science education field.

Such journals include Science Education, the Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Research in Science Education, and the International Journal of Science Education.

Microscale chemistry is an approach to teaching chemistry starting by experimentation with low-cost materials using chemical substances in the quantities of a gram or less.