Perceived Benefits and Post-Programme Electrochemistry Attainment Following Collaborative Teaching in Foundation Chemistry II

Abstract

Electrochemistry is often considered as amongst the conceptually most challenging subjects in introductory chemistry since students are required to bridge the redox concepts, symbolic representations, particulate reasoning, and quantitative problem solving. This paper is a journal-like assessment of this collaborative teaching project, which seeks to reinforce the learning process of electrochemistry in CHM096 Foundation Chemistry II. The sources that were analysed are documentary, evaluative, and assessment related sources that are pertinent to implementation and effects of the programme. It was a lecture-based programme about redox reactions, galvanic cells and standard electrode potential in a cooperative learning session between course lecturers and a guest lecturer. The response of students was extremely positive: 87 responses were obtained, 86 of 87 students stated that they completed the session, the mean score rating was approximately 4.70 out of 5, and around 95.9% of all the ratings were 4 or 5. The most impressive dimensions were meeting programme goals, mastery of the speaker, good presentation, and clarity of explanation. Nonetheless, confidence in responding to electrochemistry questions, final-exam preparation, galvanic cells, and standard electrode potential, was found to have relatively lower ratings. Examining charting revealed that electrochemistry provided 20 marks to the CHM096 final paper, with most of the requirements being within the structured section. An analysis of 99 valid 2025 scripts revealed moderate but encouraging post-programme performance, the mean score in Question 4 was 4.41/8, in Question 5 was 3.48/8 and in electrochemistry structured score was 7.90/16 (49.4%). Notably, electrochemistry structured section performance was higher as compared to performance on the remainder of the structured questions in general. The results indicate that the collaborative teaching was positively accepted and linked to the promoting post-programme attainment of electrochemistry, and also indicated that galvanic-cell reasoning, standard electrode potential and examination-type problem solving requires further reinforcement.