Assessment of undergraduate chemistry students' understanding of the nature and purpose of scientific models and modeling

The five studies presented in this dissertation focused on how undergraduate chemistry students think about the nature and purpose of scientific models, for instance, where models come from, how models change, and the characteristics of “good” scientific models. To inform these studies, students enrolled in introductory undergraduate chemistry courses responded to several surveys and shared their ideas about scientific models and modeling. Student responses were analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods to identify themes in students’ ideas.

Based on the identified themes, I concluded that while undergraduate students rarely received formal education related to the epistemic nature of scientific models and modeling, they do possess some intuitive ideas that can be useful for thinking about models in science. I also observed a range of sophistication in students’ ideas; some students already possess ideas that are expert-like while other students possessed very naïve ideas. Most students exhibited mid-level ideas that, while not expert-like, may be useful for building upon in models-focused classroom settings. Finally, I discuss the development of a novel assessment tool, the MC-OMC, that has the potential to be useful for evaluating students’ ideas about the nature and purpose of scientific models and modeling and which can be administered and scored rapidly.