Abstract
In the winter semester of 2020, we stood before a double challenge: teaching an introductory chemistry calculation course - a topic which was proven problematic for students (Scott, 2012; Rusek, et al., 2021) causing even university drop outs - online as all education had to be moved online due to the obvious reasons. Importance to re-design the course was even higher as the freshman chemistry students experienced their last year of upper-secondary studies in a distance-learning form only to "enter" university with another set of online courses.
For this reason, the original Chemistry calculations course was re-designed using the flipped-classroom method. The effect of the class was measured using: 1.
Pre-post chemistry calculations test, 2. Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) based (Ryan and Deci, 2000) questionnaires given to the students after each unit and 3.
Interviews with students identified as interesting either on account of their test score (improvement or decrease) or answers in the post-unit questionnaires. The results suggest the students' (33) initial chemistry calculations skills were at quite a low level with 66% of the students not scoring over 50% in the test, overall success-rate being 46% despite majority of the students reported they were familiar with the calculation types from upper-secondary school.
The post-test showed a significant increase (p < .01, η2 = .417) with overall 86% success-rate. At the same time, students expressed increase in motivation to deal with chemistry calculations, expressed positive attitudes towards the flipped-classroom conception and course management as well as proposed several improvements (more exercise tasks, materials for flipped-classroom preferably in the form of videos made by the course teachers etc.).
The results were taken into account for the following year's class. An e-book including tasks for exercise equipped with adaptable scaffolding for each task was prepared, also explanatory videos for the five main calculation types were prepared to support the students.
A year of 2021 has not been teste with the post-test yet.