Developing an Approach for Measuring the Impact of Curriculum Interventions in Chemistry

The recent rise in the number of teaching dominant positions across the sector and the increased strategic importance of pedagogy in the lead up to the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) has resulted in an increase in educational innovation and curriculum redevelopments in the chemical sciences. Due to the diverse nature of many of these projects, the methods used to evaluate their impact on student performance, skills development and attitude tend to be somewhat varied (e.g. questionnaires developed by the principal investigators).

The aim of this project is to investigate the effectiveness of the diverse range of approaches used to measure the impact of teaching and learning innovations and to work towards the development of a robust and reproducible set of measures that can be used to quantify the impact of curriculum interventions and pedagogical innovations in the chemical sciences.

The initial phases of the project will require a postgraduate student to research existing methodologies (e.g. the use of a Chemical Concept Inventory (CCI)) and to investigate the validity of these approaches when used to evaluate curriculum developments are Leicester.

These initial phases will identify the strengths and weaknesses of these existing approaches and consider what steps can be taken to develop a new strategy to measure the impact of new teaching and learning approaches on student skills, understanding and attitude in the chemical sciences.

The subsequent phases of the project will involve the development of new set of metrics which can be used to measure the impact of innovative teaching and learning practice on student knowledge, skills development and attitudes towards the subject. This new approach will be used to measure the impact of a number of innovations at Leicester and at partner institutions who will be identified in the initial phases of the project.

The final output of this project will be the publication of a consistent strategic approach to measuring the impact of curriculum innovations in the chemical sciences which can be adopted by institutions throughout the sector.

The postgraduate researcher will develop the wide range of quantitative and qualitative research skills necessary to undertake this project. The researcher will gain significant experience of the relevant teaching and learning theories used in undergraduate chemistry degree programmes through observation of a wide variety of approaches and literature research. The researcher will also gain experience of the procedures and quality control standards used to ensure chemistry degree programmes meet the expectations of all key stakeholders (i.e. current and future students, the learned societies (particularly the RSC), the employers of chemical science graduates and academics at Leicester and other institutions (e.g. external examiners)).