ArticleJACS Au2022
Advancing Equity in STEM: The Impact Assessment Design Has on Who Succeeds in Undergraduate Introductory Chemistry.
Article in JACS Au, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- What Counts in General Chemistry? An Exploratory Look at What Was Emphasized and Rewarded on General Chemistry Exams Across the United States.Journal of chemical education · 2026Article
- A Preliminary Set of Principles to Support Learning in the Context of Generative AI.Journal of chemical education · 2026Review
- Unlocking Instructors' Assessment Insights: General Chemistry Instructors' Perspectives on Types of Questions and their Classroom Application.Journal of chemical education · 2025Article
- Article
- An Asynchronous Chemistry-in-biology Intervention Improves Student Content Knowledge and Performance in Introductory Biology.CBE life sciences education · 2025Article
- Low-Stakes, Growth-Oriented Testing in Large-Enrollment General Chemistry 1: Formulation, Implementation, and Statistical Analysis.Journal of chemical education · 2024Article
- Undergraduate Biology Lecture Courses Predominantly Test Facts about Science Rather than Scientific Practices.CBE life sciences education · 2024Article
- Thinking and Learning in Nested Systems: The Classroom Level.Journal of chemical education · 2024Article
- Beyond active learning: Using 3-Dimensional learning to create scientifically authentic, student-centered classrooms.PloS one · 2024Article
- How Do Instructors Explain The Mechanism by which ATP Drives Unfavorable Processes?CBE life sciences education · 2023Article
- Addressing Equity Asymmetries in General Chemistry Outcomes Through an Asset-Based Supplemental Course.JACS Au · 2023Article
- Participation in a High-Structure General Chemistry Course Increases Student Sense of Belonging and Persistence to Organic Chemistry.Journal of chemical education · 2023Article
- Rethinking (again) Hardy-Weinberg and genetic drift in undergraduate biology.Frontiers in genetics · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
What we as scientists and educators assess has a tremendous impact on whom we authorize to participate in science careers. Unfortunately, in critical gateway chemistry courses, assessments commonly emphasize and reward recall of disaggregated facts or performance of (often mathematical) skills. Such an emphasis marginalizes students based on their access to pre-college math preparation and misrepresents the intellectual work of chemistry. Here, we explore whether assessing intellectual work more authentic to the practice of chemistry (i.e., mechanistic reasoning) might support more equitable achievement. Mechanistic reasoning involves explaining a phenomenon in terms of interactions between lower scale entities (e.g., atoms and molecules). We collected 352 assessment tasks administered in college-level introductory chemistry courses across two universities. What was required for success on these tasks was rote math skills (165), mechanistic reasoning (36), neither (126), or both (25). Logistic regression models predict that the intellectual work emphasized on in an assessment could impact whether 15-20% of the cohort passes or fails. Whom does assessment emphasis impact most? Predicted pass rates for those often categorized as "at-risk" could be 67 or 93%, depending on whether their success was defined by rote calculation or mechanistic reasoning. Therefore, assessment transformation could provide a path toward advancing the relevance of our courses and educational equity.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.