Date of Award
2006
Level of Access Assigned by Author
Campus-Only Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Teaching
Advisor
Francois Amar
Second Committee Member
Mitchell Bruce
Third Committee Member
Michael Wittmann
Abstract
We start from a set of survey results which show what ideas general chemistry students have of the constituent concepts of Beer's law: concentration, path length, the nature of light and its absorption by matter. These results have informed our development of a set of lab exercises designed to help students construct their model of Beer's law by analogy with macroscopic models of concentration and path length. Pre- and post-testing of student understanding was carried out and the results compared with the same testing in a control group that was simply given information in a didactic manner. A statistically significant gain in student understanding of Beer's law was observed. The results are discussed in the light of the need for improved concept integration into the laboratory curriculum which tends to favor learning of techniques.
Recommended Citation
Leland, Matthew, "Using Analogical Models in Undergraduate Chemistry Laboratory Courses to Improve Student Understanding of Beer's Law" (2006). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1327.
https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/etd/1327