The impact of touch-screen technology on spatial cognitive skills as related to molecular geometries was assessed through 102 one-on-one interviews with undergraduate students. Participants were provided with either printed 2D ball-and-stick images of molecules or manipulable projections of 3D molecular structures on an iPad. Following a brief introduction to common molecular shapes, participants were assessed on their representational competence. In particular, learners were tested on their ability to match and construct molecular representations. Using the device for less than 15 min, iPad users exhibited increased ability to correctly identify related chemical representations relative to learners taught with a paper-based method. Even in the last stage of the experiment, without access to the iPad, a significant difference between the two populations was sustained, with iPad-based learners demonstrating significantly higher representational competence than learners using the paper-based method. These findings suggest that touch-screen devices such as the iPad serve as effective learning technology for development of visuospatial and representational competence skills.

The synthesis of N-methoxycarbonyl-2-imidazolidone, an analogue of biotin, was conducted by organic chemistry students and confirmed using FT-IR and 1H NMR. Spectroscopy students used FT-IR to measure the rate of hydrolysis of the product and determined the rate constant for the reaction using the integrated rate law. From the magnitude of the rate constant, the reaction was found to be activation limited. A student survey was conducted, which showed the laboratory experiment to be a positive learning experience.