Ali Hussain

Critique of the Journal Article: Comparisons of Success and

Retention in a General Chemistry Course Before and After the
Adoption of a Mathematics Prerequisite (Donovan, William J.,
and Ethel R. Wheland 2009).

Introduction
The article by (Donovan, William J., and Ethel R. Wheland 2009)
discusses the relationship between mathematical ability and success in
a general chemistry course at an open-enrolment university. The
chemistry department at the university put in place a mathematics
prerequisite for the chemistry course to scrutinize if it would make a
difference to the students chemistry grades. The data examined would
include grades before and after the mathematics prerequisite was
implemented and students math ACT scores. The analysis of the data
demonstrated that success in the chemistry course increased after the
implementation of a mathematics prerequisite. This critique will begin
by providing some background about the article and summarizing it.
Then it will examine the positives and possible negatives of the
following elements in the article: the methods sections which deals
with the selection of participants and the results section which
discusses the research questions and the consistency of data. The
critique will conclude that the article is well written and contains all the
necessary components with just a few improvements needed in the
method, results and data sections. A brief discussion of further
research will also be included in this critique.

Background and summary of article

Mathematics is used extensively in chemistry as well as many other
science subjects such as physics and biology (Andrews University
2012). Mathematics is a fundamental part of chemistry as it provides
the basis for a student to understand unfamiliar concepts, construct
models and solve problems. In addition to aiding a students
quantitative approach to chemistry, mathematics also provides insight
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to all branches of chemistry. These branches include inorganic, organic,

and physical chemistry and can range to modern subjects such as
biochemistry, analytical and environmental chemistry (University of
York 2013)

The article being critiqued discusses the relationship between

mathematical ability and success in a chemistry course at an open-
enrolment university. A mathematics prerequisite was put in place and
the results measured the students grades before and after the
mathematics course was introduced. The Fall 2001 and 2002 ACT data,
and the 2003 survey results were examined at first, then the
department decided to analyze comprehensive student data for
Principles of Chemistry I for the periods of Fall 2001-2005 and Spring
2002-2006. This data convinced the department and university that a
mathematics prerequisite should be implemented in the start of Fall
2006. Information of student progress in the chemistry course was
taken in Fall 2006-2007 to compare student achievement before and
after the mathematics course was introduced. Approximately 3000
students were examined and the student who dropped out of the
course were excluded from the study. Two research questions were
answered in this article. After analysis of the results the conclusion was
made that success and retention in chemistry after the implementation
of a mathematics prerequisite.

Method
Participants were identified as a total population of students
completing Principles of Chemistry I in fall 2001 through spring 2006,
which was approximately 3,000 students. Researchers took into
account that many confounding factors contributed to students
withdrawing from the course, so those students who withdrew from the
course were excluded from analyses of the students that succeeded in
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the course. Researches used ACT mathematics scores, information

regarding the completion of mathematics courses, and information
regarding students final grades in the Chemistry course. Researchers
plotted all the data collected to determine correlation. The researchers
only looked at students previous ACT mathematics scores; they did not
look at factors such a gender and nationality, which can have an affect
on students mathematics ability. A study by (PISA 2009) has said that
Boys outperform girls in mathematics in 35 of the 65 countries and
economies that participated in PISA 2009 and Boys outperform girls
in mathematics by an average of 12 points across OECD countries.
Therefore the inclusion and recognition of gender in the study would
have made it a more completed study. Nationality also affects
mathematics ability as countries have different education systems that
might focus more on certain subjects than others. According to (PISA
2009) countries such as Colombia, Liechtenstein, Belgium, Chile,
United Kingdom, United States, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Austria,
Spain, Peru, Netherlands, France, Denmark, Germany, Brazil, Italy,
Hong Kong, China, Greece, Mexico had higher male maths scores than
female. It is possible that because the study did not look into gender
and nationality the results could have been skewed.

The numbers of students examined in this study are approximately

3000 where as in a study conducted much before this one by (Held
1941), only 269 engineering freshman were used. 104 earned a mean
mathematical score of 35.31 and received an A or B in chemistry. 82
students scored a mean mathematical score of 30.70 and received a C
in chemistry. 83 students earned a mean score of 27.00 and received a
D or F in the chemistry course (Held, 1941). Held concluded,
mathematics placement test might be used as a chemistry placement
test to good advantage (Held 1941). The use of more students by
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(Donovan, William J., and Ethel R. Wheland (2009) makes their study
more thorough because of the wide range of students used.

Results

The two research questions in the study were:

1. Does a demonstrated level of mathematical ability correlate with

success and/or retention in Principles of Chemistry I?
2. Were student success and/or retention Principles of Chemistry I
changed after the adoption of a mathematics prerequisite?

The studies performed by (Donovan, William J., and Ethel R. Wheland

2009) showed that there is a correlation between mathematics ability
and success in a chemistry course, which resulted in the mathematics
prerequisite being put in place. This will go on to answer the second
research question. Many studies support this claim made by (Donovan,
William J., and Ethel R. Wheland 2009), Sources such as Pickering
(1975) have said there is an overwhelming correlation between
whatever the math SAT measures and successful achievement in
chemistryThe math SAT is still a good way to sort out students who
are likely to have trouble in freshman chemistry (p. 512- 513). In
addition Spencer (1996) said, it would be worthwhile to determine if
mathematics courses might increase the probability of achieving
higher chemistry grades (p. 1152). Bohning (1982) also supports the
claim that chemistry and math go together by saying, and based on
the premise that the deductive reasoning process which accompanies
basic mathematical technique is crucial for a meaningful
comprehension of general chemistry principles (p. 207). The data for
students with a mathematics prerequisite was also analyzed and the
researches concluded the same thing, mathematics ability has a
positive effect on the success in the chemistry course which also is
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supported by (NRC 1996, p. 224). They say, School science and

mathematics programs should be coordinated so that students learn
the necessary mathematical skills and concepts before and during
their use in the science program (NRC 1996, p. 214). A criticism that
can be made about the results section is the inconsistency of the
number; the researches started of with 3000 students but could only
analyze 1200 because of the semesters analyzed. 10 semesters worth
of data were used to analyze students without a math prerequisite and
see their success in chemistry but only 2 semesters worth of data was
used to analyze students chemistry success with a math prerequisite.
The researchers should have analyzed another 8 semesters worth of
data of students with a math prerequisite to equalize the data and
make the study a more thorough one.

Conclusion
The article, when looked over as a whole, is a well-written, easily
understood article that contains all necessary components. The few
improvements that needed to be made were in the method section
with the selection of students and the results section in which there
was inconsistency with the data since an unequal number of semesters
were examined. The articles organization and detailing allow it to be a
study that can be replicated in any educational institute. This study has
examined the relationship between mathematics and chemistry but
further research should be done on the cognitive skills related to
mathematics and chemistry as identified by (ACT, Inc. 2008) because it
is possible that the connection between the two is not based on actual
mathematical knowledge. If this is the case then educators will have to
find a way to develop these high order cognitive skills (Bloom,
Engelhart, Furst, Hill, & Krathwohl, 1956) in chemistry classes so that a
math prerequisite is not needed. In conclusion the study conducted
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reached it goals by answering its research questions and resulted in

having higher success rates in chemistry at the university.
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References
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