Flame Test Concept Inventory

MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School Certificate for Approving the Dissertation We hereby approve the Dissertation of Ana V. Mayo Candidate for the Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Director Dr. Stacey Lowery Bretz Committee Chair Dr. Ellen J. Yezierski Reader Dr. Neil D. Danielson Reader Dr. Richard T. Taylor Graduate School Representative Dr. Jennifer Blue ABSTRACT ATOMIC EMISSION MISCONCEPTIONS AS INVESTIGATED THROUGH STUDENT INTERVIEWS AND MEASURED BY THE FLAME TEST CONCEPT INVENTORY by Ana V. Mayo One challenge of chemistry education arises from the limited experiences that students have with some abstract concepts first introduced during chemistry classes. The abstract concept of atomic emission is formally introduced during secondary education in the U.S. science curriculum. The topic is re-introduced in the first year of, and elaborated upon throughout, the undergraduate chemistry curriculum. Current chemistry education literature does not address students’ understandings of atomic emission. This study addresses this gap in the literature. Through interviews, this study investigated students’ understandings of atomic emission using flame test demonstrations and energy level diagrams. In both open-ended and flame test questions, ideas related to enthalpy, ionization, and changes in states of matter were common reasoning patterns when students builded explanations for atomic emission. The misconceptions found in interviews allowed the development of the Flame Test Concept Inventory (FTCI). The FTCI was administered to high school and undergraduate chemistry students. The results of 459 high school students across the U.S and 362 undergraduate chemistry students from a predominantly undergraduate institution shed light into diverse categories of misconceptions at different levels of student chemistry expertise. While the focus of this dissertation was students’ understandings of atomic emission, additional work was completed in analytical chemistry. This work is presented in Appendix A- Flow injection analysis (FIA) and liquid chromatography (LC) for multifunctional chemical analysis (MCA) systems. The large class sizes of first year chemistry labs makes it challenging to provide students with hands-on access to instrumentation because the number of students typically far exceeds the number of research grade instruments available to collect data. MCA systems provide a viable alternative for large scale instruction while supporting a hands-on approach to more advanced instrumentation. This study describes how the capabilities of MCA systems were extended to introduce FIA and LC in undergraduate laboratories. Two MCA systems, Vernier and MeasureNet, were used in two unique experiments demonstrating the detection of salicylate in aspirin tablets by FIA and the LC separation of a mixture of riboflavin and fluorescein. Both instruments are rugged and inexpensive permitting student construction, if desired. ATOMIC EMISSION MISCONCEPTIONS AS INVESTIGATED THROUGH STUDENT INTERVIEWS AND MEASURED BY THE FLAME TEST CONCEPT INVENTORY A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry by Ana V. Mayo Miami University Oxford, OH 2012 Dissertation Director: Stacey Lowery Bretz © Ana V. Mayo 2013 Table of Contents Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................iii List of Tables .........................................................................................................................xi List of Figures ......................................................................................................................xiii List of Appendices ...............................................................................................................xvi Dedication ..........................................................................................................................xviii Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................xix Chapter 1: Statement of the Problem ......................................................................................1 Purpose of the Study and Research Questions..................................................................1 Boundary Conditions ........................................................................................................2 Chapter 2: Literature Review..................................................................................................4 Constructivism……………………………………………………..…..............................4 Ausubel’s and Novak’s Meaningful Learning…………....................................................4 Johnstone’s Domains for Representation of Chemistry Concepts.....................................5 Misconceptions Research....................................................................................................6 Misconception related to Atomic Emission........................................................................8 Concept Inventories ……………………….......................................................................8 Chapter 3: Methodology .......................................................................................................12 Rationale for Mixed Methods Design……………………………………..….… …….12 Qualitative Method Analysis……………......................................................................12 Interview Setting………………..……….......................................................................14 Flame test demonstration……..………....................................................................14 iii Human subjects procedures.............................................................................................15 Interviewee recruitment…...............................................................................................16 High school classes…..………...................................................,.............................16 High school participants………...............................................................................16 Undergraduate classes………..................................................................................16 Undergraduate participants………..........................................................................17 Context of the study.................................................................................................17 High school..........................................................................................................18 Undergraduate school..........................................................................................19 Interviews..................................................................................................................19 Interview technique..............................................................................................19 Interview Analysis.....................................................................................................21 Constant comparative method...............................................................................21 Constant comparative method analysis.....................................................22 The mode node framework....................................................................................22 The mode node framework analysis...........................................................23 Quantitative data collection and analysis................................................................24 Concept inventory design...........................................................................24 Writing items..............................................................................................24 Validity..................................................................................................................24 Expert Alpha FTCI Content Validity........................................................24 Alpha FTCI Participant Recruitment........................................................25 iv Alpha FTCI Student Validation Interviews..............................................25 Alpha FTCI Concurrent Validity..............................................................26 Alpha FTCI Student Validation Interviews..............................................26 Alpha FTCI Scoring..................................................................................26 FTCI Participant Recruitment.............................................................................27 FTCI Participants..........................................................................................27 High school participants....................................................................27 Undergraduate participants..........................................................27 Test-retest participants..................................................................27 FTCI Student Validation Interviews............................................................28 FTCI Scoring..................................................................................................28 FTCI Item Analysis......................................................................................29 Item difficulty..................................................................................29 Item Discrimination.........................................................................29

Load more