Promoting process skills in undergraduate chemistry discussions

Process skills are important intellectual and collaborative practices including skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, teamwork, and interpersonal communication. According to previous studies, students often struggle with demonstrating process skills, so the goal of this work was to find ways to support students in the development of these skills. This research involved analyzing recordings of student groups in undergraduate chemistry discussions to determine if students exhibited evidence of critical thinking and teamwork during their conversations and interactions, and to investigate whether activity design and graduate teaching assistant (GTA) facilitation played a role in group performance. Results from an introductory chemistry course showed that students demonstrated low amounts of critical thinking and teamwork, especially during activities. Possible explanations for this may have included differences in GTA instructional techniques, lack of immediate feedback on activity responses, and occasional technology issues involved with the activity. The lessons learned from this study prompted us to design podcast-based activities for a different undergraduate chemistry course that would better support students in engaging in both the activity and process skills. The activity was implemented over multiple semesters in general chemistry discussions, and revisions were made based on observations, recordings of GTA and student groups, and GTA/instructor feedback. When observing for evidence of teamwork during a later semester of implementation, it was found that student groups demonstrated mixed levels of teamwork. Groups with higher evidence of process skills were often taught by GTAs who frequently facilitated whole class discussions and on-task interactions with student groups. Additionally, students often demonstrated higher evidence of process skills when they consistently completed process skill reflections, especially as a team. It was also found that students sometimes struggled with interpreting process skill reflections, suggesting further activity revision and implementation is needed.