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Mission Statement
Current trends in chemical education are beginning to emphasize a wider range of options for assessing student learning than the traditional hour exam or final exam containing a selection of problems to work. A major focus is on the desirability of posing challenges that will prompt students to realistically assess their own progress in a nongraded situation. In particular, students' grasp of chemical concepts (as contrasted with the ability to work numerical problems) has begun to assume larger importance. Questions revolving around concepts can help students sharpen their mental models of nature. (A more thorough discussion of the rationale behind such questions as well as a large selection of questions is provided by the Web site Conceptest (http://www.chem.wisc.edu/~concept) maintained by Arthur B. Ellis.) Likewise, questions that can induce productive discussion among students are desirable, because they can facilitate understanding and foster skills in communal problem solving. These must be carefully formulated from both the point of eliciting some student interest and of relying on the extent of chemical knowledge that students could reasonably be expected to possess. Questions posed in novel formats such as by videotape or making use of computer technology are also desirable, inasmuch as they can increase student involvement and interest. A particularly interesting subclass of these is questions that involve hands-on, interactive participation on the part of students.
In light of these developments, we are expanding the scope of Resources for Student Assessment to include not only the more traditional types of questions that we have previously published but also concept questions, discussion questions, and questions posed in novel format as described above.
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