Trials and tribulations: student approaches and difficulties with proposing mechanisms using the electron-pushing formalism

Gautam Bhattacharyya

89 citations0/0 files storedChemistry Education Research and Practice

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Science Education and Pedagogy Various Chemistry Research Topics Chemistry Education and Research

Abstract

The skill of proposing mechanisms of reactions using the electron-pushing formalism (EPF) is not only of value to practicing organic chemists but it is also emphasized to students enrolled in organic chemistry courses at all levels. Several research studies in the past decade have documented the difficulties that undergraduate, and even graduate students, encounter when trying to propose mechanisms using the EPF. An examination of this work suggests the emergence of a preliminary, but coherent, picture of students' strategies and difficulties with using electron-pushing to solve a variety of organic chemistry tasks. The first two sections of this paper, I present (1) two factors that may underlie several of the students' difficulties as presented in the organic chemistry education research literature; and (2) a model of how students approach solving mechanism tasks using the EPF. This paper concludes with a section on potential implications for instruction and a set of research questions arising from this analysis that have yet to be answered.

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References

1986Protocol Analysis: Verbal Reports as Data 1970Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years; A Scheme 2005Cognitive Load Theory and Complex Learning: Recent Developments and Future Directions 2005"It Gets Me to the Product": How Students Propose Organic Mechanisms 1993Concept learning versus problem solving: There is a difference 2006Commonsense Chemistry: A Model for Understanding Students' Alternative Conceptions 2008Understanding Randomness and its Impact on Student Learning: Lessons Learned from Building the Biology Concept Inventory (BCI)2008Making sense of the arrow-pushing formalism among chemistry majors enrolled in organic chemistry

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2017Evaluating student motivation in organic chemistry courses: moving from a lecture-based to a flipped approach with peer-led team learning 2015Are Noncovalent Interactions an Achilles Heel in Chemistry Education? A Comparison of Instructional Approaches 2022Mechanistic Reasoning in Organic Chemistry: A Scoping Review of How Students Describe and Explain Mechanisms in the Chemistry Education Research Literature 2017This mechanistic step is “ productive ”: organic chemistry students' backward-oriented reasoning

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