Year: 2006
Type: article
Abstract: In the department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Ulster the teaching of chemistry to students enrolled on a variety of degree programmes covering a range of subjects in the Life and Health Sciences, has historically presented a problem due to the wide range of entry qualifications held by students.As a minimum the students may be expected to hold a GCSE pass or its equivalent in the Irish Leaving certificate qualification.Exceptionally there may be students enrolled on our degree programmes who have had no experience of specific single subject chemistry teaching.Our aim is to ensure that our first year undergraduates have the necessary competence, in certain relevant areas of chemistry, to progress satisfactorily through higher level modules where chemistry is an essential pre-requisite.The identification of additional competencies, which are essential to the successful study of chemistry at degree level, led us to the conclusion that a familiarity with certain key areas of mathematics is unavoidable.A number of teaching strategies have been developed which support the traditional lecture and tutorial teaching sessions for those students with little prior experience of mathematics and advanced chemistry.Apart from student performance in the coursework and examination components of the first semester chemistry module, which is the main indicator of the efficacy of our teaching strategies, we have incorporated an advanced multivariate statistical analysis of the performance of a variety of student groups within the cohort.These groups are identified by the nature of their prior educational experience and entry qualifications.This sophisticated analysis of performance against prior experience across the cohort is a key element in our monitoring and evaluation of the strategies, which we have developed to achieve a common level of chemistry competence across the cohort.The teaching strategies and module evaluation techniques employed will be presented in detail together with further developments to be trialled in the academic year 2006-2007.This approach has enabled us to improve the module pass rate from 73% for the academic year 2004-2005 to 91% for the 2005-2006 session.
Authors: William Hagan, Stephen McClean, David Ruddick
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2510157290