Who says Organic Chemistry is Difficult? Exploring Perspectives and Perceptions

Abstract

Much research has identified organic chemistry as an area of difficulty for learners. There is also much literature pertaining to the factors that contribute to learners' difficulties. This paper explores the intersections of teachers' and learners' perceptions of teaching and learning organic chemistry respectively. Understanding these nuances has implications for all involved in the teaching and learning of organic chemistry. Teachers' understanding of their learners' perspectives has a critical influence on developing meaningful learning. This paper reports the perceptions of those teaching and learning organic chemistry at high school and university level. Surveys were used to gather data from four cohorts of participants. These included high school students (n=276) and teachers (n=79) from 73 high schools as well as university students (n=121) and lecturers (n=20) from 12 different universities in Ireland. While many of the learner participants enjoyed organic chemistry and found it interesting, the majority found it difficult to learn and understand. The learners' attitudes to organic chemistry was compared with their actual level of understanding. This comparison revealed some disparity. The teachers showed a relatively accurate perception of their learners' experience of organic chemistry. While there was broad agreement between the teachers' and learners' perceptions of organic chemistry, the discrepancies are explored to inform future teaching and learning. There were different reasons why teachers and learners identified topics as easy or difficult to teach or learn respectively. This paper provides a novel contribution to existing literature by investigating teachers' and learners' perspectives. There is evidence to suggest that these participants are not aware of the multitude of complex factors impacting their experiences. The participants' views are largely-dominated by external factors in the educational contexts. While these factors are significant, it is important also that teachers and learners become more aware of the intrinsic factors. In any case, educational change is a slow process, and tangible change can only happen within individual classrooms if driven by individual teachers and learners. Many of the extrinsic factors are beyond the control of teachers and learners. However, addressing some of the intrinsic factors is within the capabilities of teachers and learners who are willing to share and develop together. The critical role of teacher's empathy and other factors are identified and addressed in this paper.

Exploring the Perception of Chemistry Students at Kulliyyah of Science in Learning Organic Chemistry

“…Most of the respondents, except of Batch 171 voted this subject as very difficult for them to learn and comprehend. This finding supports previous studies done elsewhere (Barr et al, 2010;Cardellini, 2018;Dwyer & Childs, 2017;Erika, 2017), where organic chemistry is perceived as a difficult subject for learners to comprehend which resulted in declining of students enrolled in science-stream courses.…”

“…Aromaticity is also another topic perceived as neutral for most respondents (Figure 10). Similar with the findings by Dwyer & Childs, (2017), reaction types (Figure 11), stereochemistry (Figure 12), and organic reactions (Figure 13) were the topics that most students in this study perceived as difficult for them to learn and comprehend. The common factor of the difficulty is probably because the content itself is too abstract and complex.…”

Flipped Classroom in Organic Chemistry Has Significant Effect on Students’ Grades

“…Keywords: flipped classroom, organic chemistry, higher education, active learning, educational video inTrODUcTiOn Organic chemistry has always been considered a difficult topic (O'Dwyer and Childs, 2017). Some authors attribute this to the new and non-familiar tasks organic students are required to perform (for example, drawing and interpreting tridimensional molecules on a two-dimensional surface, or predicting the products of a reaction based on the nature and reactivity of the reactants) and because organic chemistry is usually very fast paced due to the large quantity of topics to be covered in one semester (Fautch, 2015).…”

Nudging College Pre-service Teachers towards the Desired Path in Isomerism Concepts of Aliphatic Hydrocarbons through the Use of Conceptual Change Texts

“…Literature search (Johnstone, 2006;Johnstone, 2010;O'Dwyer & Childs, 2017) indicated that organic chemistry, in general, is difficult for college level learners. Learners face difficulty almost in all concepts of introductory organic chemistry (O'Dwyer & Childs, 2017). Isomerism is one piece of introductory organic chemistry concepts.…”