New Perspectives in Science Education

At universities in Germany, many students drop out of their science study programs [1]. Besides many other reasons, students’ lack of knowledge and failing of tests in the first terms are amongst the most common ones to explain these drop-out rates [2]. A possibility to face these dropout rates is to establish introductory courses which take place before students’ first term.

In order to establish an effective chemistry introductory course at the University of Göttingen, we carried out interviews with the teaching staff concerning their subject specific wishes and requirements to freshman. Additionally, we conducted a study to determine the prior knowledge of chemistry major and minor students at the beginning of their first term (n = 570). Aim of this study was to survey students’ content-specific deficiencies in chemistry such as misconceptions in the fields of atomic structure, chemical bonding, chemical reactions, stoichiometry and basics in organic chemistry in order to adapt the content and the methods of the course with respect to the teachers’ demands [3].

The aim of our contribution is to describe the deficiencies and misconceptions of university freshmen at the University of Göttingen by presenting the results of our study. Finally, we will discuss the impact of our study on the design of our introductory course.

[1] Heublein, U.; Richter, J.; Schmelzer, R.; Sommer, D. (2012): Die Entwicklung der Schwund- und Studienabbruchquoten an den deutschen Hochschulen. http://www.his.de/pdf/pub_fh/fh-201203.pdf.

[2] Hoyt, J.E.; Winn, B.A. (2004): Understanding Retention and College Student Bodies: Differences Between Drop-Outs, Stop-Outs, Opt-Outs, and Transfer-Outs. NASPA Journal 3/41.

[3] Taber, K. (2002): Chemical Misconceptions: Prevention. London.