Undergraduate Research and Leadership Scholarship Scheme

Research Project Proposal – Faculty of MaPS

Project Title / Improving the teaching and learning of organic chemistry
School / Chemistry
Project Supervisor/
Scholar Mentor / Dr Nimesh Mistry

1) Project overview – provide an outline of the research that the scholarship holder will engage with, and show how these relate to established staff research project(s). This will be used in the advertising of the role to first or second year undergraduate students and should therefore be written in a style that is accessible to them.

Using educational research to improve teaching and learning at Higher Education Institutes has grown in importance in recent years. This looks set to continue with the government’s intention to implement of a Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) to judge teaching quality.The key feature of improving teaching and learning in this way is that it uses evidence to support new understanding and improvements in teaching.

Whilst general learning theory is well established, organic chemistry educational research (OCER) is an area which to date,has been poorly studied butis now growing in importance. This is due to it’s the potential to impact the teaching of a subject taken by many students across the globe (for example, organic chemistry courses are compulsory for medical students in the US).

Within our group we are interested in gaining an understanding of how students learn organic chemistry. From this foundation,we can develop new teaching techniques and measure their effectiveness compared to traditional methods. As an example of our work, we have used educational research to redevelop the undergraduate chemistry laboratory courses at Leedsbased upon how students learn from different styles of experiments. We have been able to design a course that reduces information overload for students entering the laboratory, improves students’ ability to perform practical techniques, and develops their ability to solve problems and connect theory to practical work.

2) Key tasks to be pursued by the scholarship holder

We have designed some education research projects that has the potentialto improve student understanding of organic chemistry, but could also be transferred to other subjects. Scholarswill be running these projects and obtaining the results for analysis. The work will include creating teaching resources, performing controlled trials (i.e. delivering the teaching), and analysing the results.

Some of the possible projects titles include:

  • Could organic mechanism questions be submitted and graded electronically, thus providing instant feedback?
  • Does teaching organic chemistry by cognitive processes rather than whole topics improve understanding due to decreased information overload?
  • How can we improve students’ development of skills gained through more opened-ended experiments?

3) Principal academic outcomes/outputs to be generated by the scholarship holders’ research

The results from scholarship holder’sresearch will have impact in a number of ways:

  • Successful projects will be implemented in the teaching of Leeds Chemistry courses
  • Sharing of results at educational conferences
  • Publication of results in peer-reviewed educational journals
  • Continuation of projects, including applications for educational grants to permit this

4) Support and personal development – some ongoing communication/interaction is expected throughout the academic year between the supervisor/research group and the scholar. Briefly outline the nature of the contact with and support for the scholarship holder from the research group and the main developmental benefits available to the scholar.

We expect that from this project, the scholarship holder’s will develop their research skills.

The supervisor will help the scholarship holder to become familiar with key learning theory which can be carried out prior to starting the summer research projects. The scholarship holder can have a say in which project(s)they will be performing, and which topics in organic chemistry will be used. The supervisor is available during the summer periods to supervise the student throughout their project and welcomes contact through the academic year to support the scholarship holder’s professional development. The nature of these projects would be of particular interest for students considering a career in teaching. This type of project would improve the chances of a scholar obtaining competitive teacher training schemes such as Teach First and the RSC education bursaries.

5) Resource requirements of the proposed research – with costs where appropriate

£700 – equipment for measuring heart rate (as method for measuring cognitive load) of participants during teaching tasks

£300 – chemicals and general consumables

6) Who should apply? A school statement giving local rules about who should apply will be inserted here when advertising the projects to students.

Any Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry or Natural Science Student is encouraged to apply. A good understanding of organic chemistry is essential. It is preferable that students will have completed the first two years to have sufficient subject knowledge, however projects can be adapted for students who have just completed their first year of study.