Evaluating Chinese Secondary School Students’ Understanding of Green Chemistry

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the understanding of secondary school students about green chemistry-related concepts, to include raw materials, solvent, and atom economy. Interviews were conducted with secondary school students from Grades 9 to 12 to acquire their descriptive understanding of the corresponding concepts. Based on the systematic analysis of the collected data, a semi-structured two-tier diagnostic instrument was proposed, which was then administered to secondary school students. Some options that were less often selected by respondents were eliminated. Using the revised instrument, a pilot survey was conducted among secondary school students, and the similar elimination procedure was followed. The final instrument was used to conduct a survey among secondary school students from Grades 9 to 12 for examining their understanding of various concepts related to green chemistry. The results showed that secondary school students' understanding of green chemistry-related concepts and the term "green chemistry" was low. However, the older students' understanding of the corresponding concepts was significantly superior to that of the younger students. No noticeable differences were found between male and female students. The findings of this study can help teachers to better examine the knowledge mastered by their students and evaluate progression in learning green chemistry.

Evaluation of the Open-Ended Green Chemistry Generic Comparison (GC)2 Prompt for Probing Student Conceptions about the Greenness of a Chemical Reaction

“…12 Using this instrument, the authors found that high school student understanding of GC concepts increased significantly when comparing scores from students across grade levels with no significant difference in scores between males and females. 12 In addition, Armstrong et al (2024) recently developed and published two open-ended GC prompts. 13 These two prompts evaluated students' ability to do the following: 1) define GC and 2) compare the preparation of cinnamaldehyde from fossil fuel-derived benzaldehyde versus from steam-distillation of cinnamon tree bark.…”

“… 12 Using this instrument, the authors found that high school student understanding of GC concepts increased significantly when comparing scores from students across grade levels with no significant difference in scores between males and females. 12 …”

“…Even fewer of these assessments have been evaluated for their ability to provide reliable and valid data. One instrument for which the evaluation of its content validity and psychometric properties was reported was a 13-item two-tier instrument, consisting of both a knowledge and reasoning tier, that was developed to assess Chinese high school student GC knowledge . Using this instrument, the authors found that high school student understanding of GC concepts increased significantly when comparing scores from students across grade levels with no significant difference in scores between males and females …”