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Date of Award

Summer 2024

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Department or Program Affiliation

Chemistry

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Chemistry

First Advisor

Stephenson, Norda

Second Advisor

Borda, Emily J.

Third Advisor

Dahl, Robyn

Fourth Advisor

McGrew, G

Abstract

Scientific literacy is a crucial goal of science education. All citizens need scientific understanding to make rational and informed decisions, and to feel confident in making such decisions. Many students harbor doubts about belonging in science and their identities as science persons. As such, science educators are tasked with helping students develop these skills as they engage in various courses. College instructors incorporate scientific literacy skills as part of their courses in which students are encouraged to develop a science person identity (i.e. science identity) through science identity work. Therefore, learning can be seen as a process of identity development where the development of a science identity is interconnected with learning scientific literacy skills in science courses.

This quantitative study focused on students in general chemistry courses, and examined their scientific literacy skills alongside their science and chemistry identities in an academic quarter between a pretest and posttest. Validated survey tools from other science disciplines were adapted to create a scientific literacy and identity survey, which was distributed to undergraduate chemistry students at Western Washington University in Spring 2023. Results from 181 students indicated that there were significant changes in students’ chemistry identity from pretest to posttest where students felt more like chemistry people (p = 0.015) . Using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient to measure the relationship between scientific literacy with science and chemistry identity, there were weak, positive correlations for scientific literacy skills with science identity (p = 0.013) and chemistry identity (p = 0.005) in the pretest survey responses. In addition, there was a moderate, positive correlation for science identity and chemistry identity in the pretest (p < 0.001) and posttest (p < 0.001) survey responses.

This study highlights the complexities of scientific literacy skill development for undergraduate students in an academic quarter and emphasizes the importance of ongoing integration of scientific literacy and identity work in science education. By fostering both scientific literacy and science identity, science educators can strengthen students’ capabilities as active, informed citizens and prepare them for science-related careers. Thus, this research contributes to the body of literature on the scientific literacy development of undergraduates in chemistry courses, as well as science identity development.

Type

Text

Keywords

Scientific Literacy, Science Identity, Chemistry Education Research (CER), Discipline-based Education Research (DBER), General Chemistry, Higher education

Publisher

Western Washington University

OCLC Number

1456648559

Subject – LCSH

Science--Study and teaching (Higher); Chemistry--Study and teaching (Higher); Education, Higher--Research

Format

application/pdf

Genre/Form

masters theses

Language

English

Rights

Copying of this document in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this document for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author’s written permission.

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