A Research-Based Framework for Evaluating conceptual chemistry
What the Framework Evaluates?
Johnstone’s Triangle
In an article in the early 1980’s Alex Johnstone proposed that one reason that chemistry is difficult for many people to understand is that chemistry knowledge is understood or represented on three different levels.
Multimedia Principles
Educational videos have been studied to identify characteristics or elements that help or hinder student learning. The foundational work in this area was done by Richard Mayer who identified 12 Principles for designing effective educational videos.
Causal Mechanistic Reasoning
Causal mechanistic reasoning explains both why and how something occurs at a level deeper than the level of the phenomenon. For chemistry, this generally means at the particulate level.
Chemistry Core Ideas
The Chemistry Core Ideas are explanatory and generative concepts fundamental to chemistry which underlie the topics that are typically taught in a general chemistry class.
Science Practices
The Sciences Practices describe behaviors that scientists engage in as they investigate and build models and theories about the natural world. The Science and Engineering practices are one of three dimensions of three-dimensional (3D) learning.
Additional Consideration
The ICAP framework, based on cognitive science, posits four modes of cognitive engagement: Interactive, Constructive, Active, and Passive. The more engaged the learner is, the better.
Content Specific Guidelines
For each of the topics we evaluate videos for, we will develop a set of specific guidelines that address the expectations for how a video would likely meet the certain criteria.