Literature Review

Literature Review Research Topic: The final foundational topic in high school chemistry is the topic of gas laws. Gas laws can be both the most interesting in terms of real-world application, but also one of the most difficult topics due to the mathematical skills that are required to complete the assignments. For this reason, I would like to research the effectiveness of a new-to-me instructional method – the use of computer simulations. The topic of improving gas laws instruction using computer simulations aligns with the field of curriculum and instruction because it is aimed at improving the instruction, and thus influencing student outcomes. This topic is important to the field of curriculum and instruction in chemistry because improving instruction should always be the goal of teachers in the classroom to better serve the students we are tasked to instruct. By using computer simulations, it affords students advantages compared to traditional instruction. These advantages include: “Extend students’ understandings of a concept by allowing them to modify variables and see immediate feedback; are interactive, allowing students to become immersed in an investigation resulting in greater learning gains; allow students to visualize and interact with invisible and/or abstract concepts” (Watson, 2019, pg. 25). By design, pHet simulations are designed to be more engaging, giving the students a safe space to explore a phenomenon without fear of making mistakes as exists in the laboratory (Lancaster et al., 2019). Problem Statement: In the high school chemistry classroom, my students struggle to understand gas laws. The impact of these struggles extends outside of the classroom and into their everyday life, for example how tire pressure behaves when the temperature fluctuations. According to the state standards, the students should be able to “understand, establish, and predict the relationships between volume, temperature, and pressure” (Tennessee, 2016). A potential cause of the problem is that my high school chemistry students have weak mathematical skills, and thus have great difficulty in solving algebraic equations. Research Question: How does the use of gas-law simulations during instruction influence the conceptual understandings of the gas laws in a high school chemistry classroom as evidenced by a pre-test and post-test? Research Product: The product of the action research project will be a four-hour instructional unit (instructional intervention), comprised of four one-hour lessons. Prior to the instructional unit, the students will take a pre-test over the gas laws. Following the instructional unit, the students will take an equivalent post-test over the gas laws and the data will be compared to determine the effectiveness of the instructional unit. In the first lesson of the instructional intervention, the students will be encountering the gas laws in the classroom for the first time. To kick off this new unit of learning, they will experience several discrepant events through teacher-led demonstrations. During the demonstrations, the students will take notes of what they see happening as well as what they believe may be happening during the demonstration. The demonstrations will be for each of the individual gas laws – Charles’ law and Boyle’s Law. The demonstration of Charles’ Law will show the students how a balloon shrinks when immersed in liquid nitrogen and the demonstration for Boyle’s Law will show how a metal can is crushed when immersed in ice water. Following the demonstrations, the students will discuss with their assigned group about what happened during the demonstration and be tasked with drawing what they believe is happening on a particle-scale. In the second lesson, the students will be exposed to the simulations for the first time on pHet, created by the University of Colorado Boulder. During the simulations, the students will manipulate each of the variables they are required to learn about – pressure, temperature, and volume. As they manipulate the variables, they will be answering questions about how each of the variables affects the other variables. At the end of the class, the students will reevaluate their models that they created in the first lesson. In the third lesson, the students will be constructing explanations for how the gas laws work and continue working on their models in their groups. The groups will be involved in a share session where they justify their findings and their explanations of the demonstrations from the first lesson. In the final lesson, the students will be introduced to the equations that represent each of the gas laws, along with how the equations relate to what the students have learned through the simulations and the demonstrations. This is the first time the students will also be tasked with using the equations to solve the problems using mathematics. The hope is that the simulations have strengthened the students’ understanding of the gas laws to a point where the equations are not the foundation of their gas laws understanding, but instead a way to explain what they already know about the behavior of gases. Research Purpose: The purpose of this action research student is to identify how the use of gas-laws simulations impacts students’ conceptual understandings gas behavior. Common Research Themes 1. The first of the themes is the use of simulations in the classroom. Each of the sources detail how simulations can be used in the classroom. The sources give examples of when they can be implemented in the learning process and also any barriers that may be encountered during implementation. 2. The second of the themes is the desire for the instructional methods to impact learning outcomes in a positive way. The sources not only detail how the simulations can be implemented in the classroom, but they also evaluate the effectiveness of the simulations based off when they are used in the learning process. These themes are tied together because they are an example of what educators should be doing on a daily, weekly, monthly, etc basis. As educators, we should be implementing whatever strategies are deemed most effective in the classroom regardless of if it means to try new things (such as simulations) or stick to things that we have used in the past with good results. In this case, these sources are indicating that simulations are a worthwhile activity in the classroom when used in an appropriate way. Literature Review Introduction The effectiveness of instructional methods is always in the mind of a reflective educator – evaluating what works against what doesn’t work, revising the teaching craft constantly to maximize student learning outcomes. This leads to the use of a variety of methods from inquirybased learning to direct instruction. Each of these methods has their own merit and situations when they are most appropriate for learning outcomes. Regardless of the methods, the overall goal is to improve student learning and lead the students in developing their thinking skills in a way that applies to the outside world. One such instructional method that is prevalent in science classrooms is the use of computer simulations. According to Winsberg in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a computer simulation is a “program that is run on a computer and that uses step-by-step methods to explore the approximate behavior of a mathematical model. Usually this is a model of a real-world system” (2019). The simulations used in the high school chemistry classroom are published by the University of Colorado at Boulder through PhET. PhET simulations have been developed for a wide variety of disciplines, including physics, chemistry, mathematics, earth science, and biology. Although PhET simulations are popular in the science classroom, there is debate within the literature about their effectiveness to influence student learning outcomes. To further investigate this topic, I propose the question: How are do simulations influence learning in the high school chemistry classroom, specifically pertaining to the study of gas laws? How are Simulations Used in the Classroom? Computer simulations are used in a variety of ways in the high school settings – this includes independent learning, blended learning, as a support to lecture, in conjunction with hands-on labs, guided inquiry, etc. The possibilities are truly limited only by the instructor and how they would like to use them. In a study on middle and high school students, Peffer et al. researched how SCI simulations, or “Science Classroom Inquiry” simulations affected the students’ beliefs about scientific practices. The SCI simulations were administered outside of the classroom and were followed by a self-report survey about how the simulations had changed their thinking about science and how it occurs – two thirds of the participants answered that the SCIs had changed their beliefs about how research and science discoveries are made. The researchers also discovered that the participants thought that the simulations helped them learn the content that was presented. These findings led the researchers to determine that “SCI simulations have the potential to enrich students’ learning about the content presented, while at the same time scaffolding authentic science inquiry and helping students better understand authentic science practices” (2015). In a study by C. Peechapol, 95 undergraduate students were separated into a control group and an experimental group – the control group receiving only lecture-based instruction, and the experimental group receiving the same lecture with an additional lab simulation afterward. Peechapol found that the experimental group had a statistically significant difference in scores compared to the control group – the experimental group had knowledge scores 28% greater than the control group. In addition to the findings about chemistry knowledge, Peechapol also found that the use of a simulation greatly increased self-efficacy scores as determined by a 5-point Likert scale. While the simulations did influence an increase in knowledge, it also influenced how the students felt about chemistry – a key piece of intrinsic motivation in students. Their results “provided evidence that virtual lab simulation enables students to: visualize the concept of chemistry, motivates them to learn, and perform laboratory experiments like a real lab environment.” These results suggest that simulations are well suited as a companion to lecturebased instruction to extend the students’ learning and help the students visualize the content more clearly (2021). In addition to combined lecture and computer simulations, Xiufeng Liu researched the how a combination of hands-on labs and computer simulations effected learning. This research study was performed as a quasi-experimental study, with all students taking a pre-test, along with two post-tests. The first of the post-tests was administered after the first rotation activity, and the second post-test was administered following the second activity. The activity order was determined by the class. One class completed the hands-on lab first, followed by the online simulation, while the other class completed the activities in reverse. Liu determined that the two activities, hands-on labs and computer simulations, were more effective when used together compared to when the activities were used independent of each other. These results led the researchers to also conclude that the use of computer simulations influences the conceptual understanding of the topic – specifically gas laws in this case, but these findings can be used for other topics as well (2006). Mike Stieff and Uri Wilensky suggest in their paper Connected Chemistry – Incorporating Interactive Simulations into the Chemistry Classroom, that one of the most common pitfalls of chemistry instruction is the lack of conceptual understanding. The students memorize information and regurgitate it whenever it is convenient, but they do not have a firm grasp on what the content means and the implications surrounding the content. For this reason, Stieff and Wilensky suggest that by using computer simulations as the foundation of inquirybased chemistry instruction, that the conceptual understanding of the students can be influenced greatly. According to the researchers, the use of simulations greatly increases the conceptual knowledge of the content compared to lecture-only learning (2003). These findings are echoed in the study addressed above by Peechapol in 2021. Simulations cannot pedagogically “plopped” within the learning cycle of a unit, but instead simulations require close monitoring by an instructor to guide the students not only in their learning but also if students struggle behaviorally. This issue was addressed by Cunha et al. in Teacher mediation actions and students’ productive engagement during the use of computer simulations in a physical science classroom. The researchers suggest different ways to implement the simulations in the classroom and the role of the instructor when the students are manipulating the simulations. The researchers determined that for students to sufficiently be engaged in the simulations, the students must see the simulation as a challenge, and that the students must know exactly what to do to find the solution (the instructions are clear). The researchers also place responsibility on the teachers to be guides during the simulations, not giving up too little or too much to keep the students engaged in the activity and allowing for the productive struggle to occur. In addition to the role of being a guide for the instruction, the teachers are to also prompt the students when they are veering off task and into being nonproductive (2014). According to the studies above, the use of computer simulations has a positive effect on student motivation and engagement as well as how the students perceive scientific practices in the classroom. While increased student motivation and engagement are superb, the overall goal of using computer simulations is to positively influence learning outcomes. How do Simulations Affect Learning Outcomes? With all new instructional strategies, teachers must access how the students engage with the new strategy as well as what effects the strategy has on student learning outcomes. According to the metanalysis performed by John Hattie in Visible Learning for Teachers, “using simulations and gaming” has a medium impact on student learning outcomes, quantified as a 0.33 effect size (2012). In more specific studies, the results have varied – some researchers have discovered positive learning impacts while other researchers have determined that simulations have little to no impact on learning outcomes. In a research study by Al-Balushi et al., students’ spatial ability and scientific reasoning skills were evaluated through a quasi-experimental methodology. The researchers used two instruments in their research – the first was a series of think-aloud interviews designed to determine how the students are thinking about the concept in the simulation (reasoning ability), and the second is a card sort activity designed to determine the influence of the simulations on a students’ spatial ability. While the research itself is not directly connected to how simulations affect learning outcomes, both spatial ability and scientific reasoning have roots in how achievement in the chemistry classroom. In topics such as VSEPR (Valence Shell Electron Pair Repulsion theory), being able to use spatial awareness abilities is crucial in identifying bond types and the shapes that molecules create. The researchers determined that simulations have a strong impact on spatial ability but have little to no impact on scientific reasoning. Despite these conclusions, students stated that “animations used in the study helped them to better understand and remember the information.” Guided inquiry is an instructional methodology that is conducive to the use of computer simulations – students follow steps provided by the instructor to discover the desired concept. Ogegbo and Ramnarian researched the impact of interactive simulations in the physics classroom through guided inquiry practice. To determine the impact of simulations, they deployed a mixedmethod methodology with a control and experimental group, with the control group experiencing the traditional teaching method, while the experimental group used simulations in addition to the traditional method. The results of their study suggest that the simulations had a significant impact on the students learning based on the increase of scores in a pre-test/post-test comparison and additional statistical analysis (2022). These results are mirrored in a similar study by O’Flaherty et al. in a nursing classroom, which suggests that the impact of simulations on student learning outcomes is cross-curricular in nature (2020). The use of simulations in the classroom does not come without barriers, though. For an instructional method to reach its full potential, the classroom instructor must be fully bought in to the method and believe that the method can be effective in their classroom, otherwise students will not be bought in or believe in the strategy. Ouahi and his colleagues researched how science instructors perceived the use of simulations in the science classroom. The researchers used a quantitative methodology using a 30-item questionnaire administered to 114 science teachers. Following the analysis of their results, they concluded that most science teachers believe that an investigative approach to simulations can be an effective tool in the classroom, that they can aid students in overcoming misconceptions by putting the learning at the center of their learning experience and requires them to actively participate in the learning experience. Some teachers, though, were apprehensive about the use of simulations – the concerns were not about the overall effectiveness of the simulations but was instead rooted in a lack of professional development that influenced their motivation to use simulations (2022). Conclusion Teaching in the 21st century, the age of technology and instant gratification, has presented unique challenges to teachers from the elementary classroom to the post-secondary environment. Keeping students engaged in a lesson has become increasingly difficult thus instructional strategies must adapt to fit the new generation in schools. One such adjustment resulting in increased student engagement is the use of computer simulations, requiring students to actively manipulate variables and draw conclusions based on their data collection. The overall effect of computer simulations on student learning outcomes is split in the literature thus additional research is needed in this area to determine if computer simulations are effective in the classroom.