Population, physical chemistry class

Once you have your objectives in mind, you must analyze the population of your physical chemistry class in order to plan the accomplishment of your objectives. Most of your students will not become physical chemists. In a career of four decades, 1 worked with hundreds of physical chemistry students. Among these former students, 1 can now identify only a handful of professors of physical chemistry. There are several professors who teach other chemical subjects and a few high-school teachers. Those who work in industry work mostly with organic, analytical, or polymer chemistry. The largest group of my former physical chemistry students is made up of physicians and other health care workers. 

Data were collected from students enrolled in three different courses. Class A was a one-semester introductory quantum mechanics course intended for junior physics majors that typically enrolled about 10 students. Class B was the second-half of a two-semester physical chemistry course for chemistry majors that typically enrolls 30-40 students. The first semester of this course focuses primarily on thermodynamics the second-half spends the first two-thirds of the semester on quantum mechanics and then concludes with a discussion of statistical mechanics. Class C is offered every semester for junior-year chemical engineering majors, and was observed three times Cl, C2, and C3. Cl and C3 were offered during the fall semester, when the mainline population of chemical engineering majors take the course and had enrollments of approximately 70 students. C2 was offered in the spring semester and is frequently taken by students who have done a "co-op" or internship in industry, which requires them to be off-campus for a semester at a time. C2 had an enrollment of around 30 students. The material in Class C is quite similar to the material offered in Class B. The first three-quarters of this class covers quantum mechanics, the remaining time is spent on statistical mechanics. 

The participants in this study were chemistry, chemical engineering, or physics students in various upper-level classes at Purdue University in which quantum mechanics represents a sizeable portion of the material covered, if not the focus of the entire course. We had prior approval from the instructors to observe their classes and to interact with their students, and from the institution s IRB to do the study. All of the students who participated in the study were volunteers. Students were informed that participation in the study was not a criterion their instructors would use when assigning their grades. The students who participated in this study represented a good cross-section of the population enrolled in these classes, from students who did very well to those who struggled to pass. 

This is a survey research ( Survey research methods in education, 1988, pp. 254— 277), involving an accessible population (Fraenkel Wallen, 2006) of students attending the chemistry department of a public university located in the northwest part of Turkey, Europe. In specific, the participants were selected from those majors who registered for the Physical Qiemistry II (PChem II) class during the Spring 2012 semester. The participation in the study was entirely on a voluntary basis. There was no sample selection rule over the accessible population, and therefore, the sample is random in nature. 

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