Open Collections

Lu, Ying Tong

University of British Columbia

Mechanistic causal reasoning in chemistry involves understanding how chemical reactions occur at the molecular level (Dood & Watts, 2022). It requires the understanding of the mechanistic changes (electron and bond movements) and the causality of these changes. This cognitively demanding reasoning process is both challenging to learn and to teach. A large body of research has documented that undergraduate chemistry students and graduates tended to use surface-level reasoning strategies, usually leading to unsuccessful recall or inappropriate application of knowledge, implying a lack of deep-level understanding of structure-function relationships. Research has also shown that students often limit their reasoning to use a single variable when considered multivariate mechanism or concepts. This study aimed to design three types of informative tutoring feedback (general hint feedback, strategic feedback, and conceptual feedback) to scaffold chemistry students’ multivariate causal mechanistic reasoning development. In addition, the study investigated the effects of the three types of feedback on students’ initial learning and transfer of procedural and conceptual knowledge. The results suggest that feedback that provided general hints (e.g. hints with useful information) guided students to the correct problem-solving approach and supported the transfer procedural knowledge. However, this type of feedback did not support the fast acquisition of conceptual and procedural knowledge. In contrast, feedback that sequentially provided procedural information (e.g. correct problem-solving procedures) and conceptual information (e.g. explanations of relevant concepts) fostered the acquisition and application of conceptual knowledge and procedural knowledge. This type of feedback did not support the transfer of procedural knowledge. Feedback that provided procedural information simultaneously had no effect on the initial learning and transfer of conceptual and procedural knowledge. The findings contribute to iv knowledge about how feedback should be designed. At the early learning stage, feedback that provides explicit instructions on the locations of errors and how to correct errors is more favourable since it can facilitate fast acquisition of new knowledge and skills. At later learning stages, feedback that provide general hints and explanation of correct response sequentially is more favourable since it fosters transfer.

Text

2024-08-29

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/89093

Chemistry

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/