Exploring post-secondary chemistry instructors’ knowledge for teaching 1H NMR spectroscopy

Abstract

Proton nuclear magnetic resonance (¹H NMR) spectroscopy is an essential characterization tool for organic chemists widely taught in the undergraduate chemistry curricula. Previous work has focused on how students advance from novice to expert in interpreting ¹H NMR spectra. However, we need to know more about how ¹H NMR spectroscopy is taught within undergraduate curricula. We sought to characterize instructors’ topic-specific pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for teaching ¹H NMR spectroscopy as a starting point to investigate how ¹H NMR spectroscopy is taught. Participants from multiple institutions—six teaching assistants, six novice instructors, and three experienced instructors—collaboratively completed content representations (CoRes) in focus groups. Through qualitative analysis of interview transcripts and CoRes, we characterized instructors' topic-specific PCK in ¹H NMR spectral interpretation. Analysis of instructors’ responses and collective PCK elucidates the role that teaching context, experience, and disciplinary background may contribute to the character of PCK. Implications of this work include the need for research on the integration of explicit learning objectives and teaching strategies for representational competence and skills, understanding and supporting student affective experiences when learning NMR, and instructional contexts that increase autonomy in learning.