Participation in a High-Structure General Chemistry Course Increases Student Sense of Belonging and Persistence to Organic Chemistry

Jennifer R Casey; K Supriya; Shanna Shaked; Justin R Caram; Arlene Russell; Albert J Courey

doi:10.1021/acs.jchemed.2c01253

Participation in a High-Structure General Chemistry Course Increases Student Sense of Belonging and Persistence to Organic Chemistry

J Chem Educ. 2023 Jul 12;100(8):2860-2872. doi: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.2c01253. eCollection 2023 Aug 8.

Authors

Jennifer R Casey¹, K Supriya², Shanna Shaked², Justin R Caram¹, Arlene Russell¹, Albert J Courey¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UCLA, Los Angeles, California 90095, United States.
² Center for Education, Innovation, and Learning in the Sciences, UCLA, Los Angeles, California 90095, United States.

Abstract

A parallel series of general chemistry courses for Life Science Majors was created in an effort to support students and improve general chemistry outcomes. We created a two-quarter enhanced general chemistry course series that is not remedial, but instead implements several evidence-based teaching practices including Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL), Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL), and the Learning Assistant (LA) model. We found that students who took enhanced general chemistry had higher persistence to the subsequent first organic chemistry course, and performed equally well in the organic course compared to their peers who took standard general chemistry. Students in the first enhanced general chemistry course also reported significantly higher belonging, although we were unable to determine if increased belonging was associated with the increased persistence to organic chemistry. Rather we found that the positive association between taking the enhanced general chemistry course and persistence to organic chemistry was mediated by higher grades received in the enhanced general chemistry course. Our findings highlight the responsibility we have as educators to carefully consider the pedagogical practices we use, in addition to how we assign student grades.