The effect of a multimedia application in order to improve the

oxidation-reduction reaction learning process.

María del Mar López Guerrero, Gema López GuerreroUniversidad de Málaga

Chemistry lecturers at the University are faced with the problem oflack of interest in this subject. This issue appears in general whenstudents have to study chemistry, but it is especially huge inengineering degrees students.

This lack of interest makes difficult a significant learning of chemistry,causing a mechanical acquisition of knowledge, as a consequence apoor retention and understanding.

As Golombek said "Maybe especially in Science, only one can beeducated on this subject, if the student is really interest in thesubject matter"

Issue “Chemophobia”

There are several causes:

• poor training in this Subject during Secondary Education (Middleand High School)

• the manner in which its contents are taught, which is insufficientto allow an understanding of the subject.

Every year, the first day of my Chemistry classes,I find the same problems.

Most of the Students of Mechanical Engineering Degree think: thissubject should not be present in their programmes, because it will notbe useful throughout either professional their career or their academicdegree.

It is the reason why teachers should:

* make understand that chemistry is necessary for both professional and academic future.

*make attractive Chemistry, changing the used teaching methods.

Furthermore, most of us knows that Chemistry is not an easy discipline.

Chemistry is an experimental science that involves themanagement of several concepts and principles whichimplicate a high level of abstraction whose understandingprovides severe difficulties for many students.

In these cases chemistry goes between a microscopic level(concept of atoms, atomic theories, etc.) to themacroscopic and symbolic perspective (solutions,equilibria, etc.) (Juarez et al., 2013).

In spite of the fact that students think that Chemistry isnot an useful subject, Chemistry studies the composition,structure, properties and change of matter.

The public image of Chemistry is mostly negative.

Majorities of people in many parts of the world hold negative opinions of chemistry.According to Schummer, Bensaude-Vincent and Van Tiggelen (2006) every scientific disciplines, specially, chemistry seems to be having a negative image, being popularly associated with poisons, hazards, chemical warfare, pollution, through pseudo-scientific aspects of alchemy, witchcraft and even schizophrenia of mad scientists

At the very beginning of the course I must explain properly our subject, I mean,Chemistry Subject, and therefore I need to explain when the different conceptsthat we will learn during the course, they will be used or reused in another subjectduring their degree or after that, when they will working as engineer.

When each topic is explained I try to relate this with the reality that they willencounter when working. I.E. Sheet metal of cars are galvanized in order toprevent corrosion, this is a redox reaction.

I try to explain different phenomenon which happen in our every day life, forinstance, when we boil an egg, you are making chemistry

In order to increase motivation about this subject, I haveemployed computer simulations.

Teaching chemistry with a multimedia application has anadvantage over traditional approaches for several reasons.

• This application allows student to be more nearly engaged withcomplex concepts. Traditional chemistry classes tend to focuson the repetition of mathematical problems, and thememorization of chemistry facts and tables. Undergraduatesfind this uninspiring, and irrelevant to their lives.

In this case we will do some research on the oxidation-reduction,focused on the difficulties of students to correctly identify theoxidation and reduction reactions. One reason for this difficulty isthat chemistry teachers and textbooks often use more than onedefinition of the processes of oxidation and reduction.

Experimental

The study was carried out during the course 2013-2014. The sampleconsisted of 35 volunteer students (32 males and 3 females) fromthree different classes, at the first course of Mechanical Engineerdegree at University of Málaga, during the first semester.

The students came from a variety of socioeconomic and culturalbackgrounds. The student attitudes towards taking chemistry werevaried. But the vast majority of them were there do not lovechemistry, and they were there simply because they needed to passthe exams to obtain the degree.

This study was created as a descriptive study in which the surveytechnique was used.

Each student made 5 or 4 tests depending on the group. The threegroups which had participated, had the same experience in workingwith chemicals in lab, and two of the all three had attended thesame computer simulations.

Students´ responses were analysed using a Likert scale. The scale ofthe test was a five point Likert type scale with a range of fiveoptions. The positive items range from 5= Certainly Agree to 1 =Certainly Disagree.

The relevant knowledge before and after the use of visual toolswas identified using a pre- and post- test.

What they thought that they knew about the topic wasmeasured using a Questionnaire, before and after the use of thevisual tools.

And finally, only two groups, which had used the visual tools,answered the utility test about the visual tools.

Computer animation.

Results

In this case, the learning process will be improved because this learning experience would involve student to observe a chemical phenomenon, in particularly,

• a chemical reaction as a lecture demonstrations

• and then, it will be viewed an animation multimedia application about the phenomenon at the molecular level, which will be explained by a narrator.

• And eventually, the students will adapt their mental model to explain a similar phenomenon with a analogous substance or reactions.

• The highest post test scores about the knowledge wereobtained by students with high prior knowledge.

• Animation encourages students with low prior knowledge todevelop new ideas to create their mental models.

• Turning to some qualitative aspects of the use of thesimulations, discussions with the students after theintervention showed that most students initially assumed thatthe simulation did not help them in the solution of theproblems but were useful in helping with the properapplication of the equations.

• Further discussion revealed some interesting aspects of thestudents´ attitudes, with several of them admitting thatthrough the simulation they clarified their minds.

1 The use of the multimedia application is more effective than conventional classes

2 The use of the multimedia application is more effective to understand theory

3 Students enjoy the topic theory more than conventional classes.

4 Students like more this type of classes.

5 They prefer this method in other subjects.

6 The use of multimedia application improves my understanding of the topic

7 The multimedia application removes a valuable study time

8 I think the media application should also be used in other subjects

9 The multimedia application helps me especially.

10 We should stop using the media application

11 I think the multimedia application shows the interest of the teacher for our learning

12 I think the multimedia application is very beneficial for the class

13 Having the multimedia application as part of the teaching in this class I like it.

In the table you can see the questions about its utility in the survey on the usefulness of the multimedia application. There are five possible answers, where 1 is disagree and 5 strongly agree.

Utility test results

Conclusion.

The use of computer simulation can be helpful in improving problemsolving.

The results of this study are based on a survey purpose after the use of amultimedia application in order to improve the learning process aboutREDOX reactions.

Student find the use and application useful to transfer from macroscopiclevel to microscopic or/ and symbolic level.

The student attitude regarding the utility of the REDOX multimediaapplication at this lesson are almost neutral.

Nevertheless, the vast majority of students recognize that chemistryknowledge is useful to interpret aspect of their everyday life, but not manyof them express their wish to continue chemistry studies.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks to University of Málaga for allowingus to develop this project and the financialsupport.