3rd Annual Academic Symposium - Tamra Fisher

Campbell University offers two General Chemistry courses, the first of which is CHEM 111. These courses provide an understanding of core principles in chemistry which are required for upper level chemistry courses. Preparatory Chemistry, CHEM 100, is a course designed to prepare students to take the General Chemistry sequence. Historically, students take Preparatory Chemistry because they feel unprepared for college chemistry or have failed CHEM 111.
It was previously discovered that students with a math SAT score below 450 were at risk of not passing General Chemistry, and have thus been encouraged to take CHEM 100 before attempting CHEM 111. The purpose of this work was two-fold. The first intent was to further study the relationship between the math SAT scores (as well as other predictors) and student success. The second purpose was to evaluate the effectiveness of CHEM 100 in preparing students to take General Chemistry.
Student information from the past 10 years was collected and analyzed using statistical procedures. It was shown that those who take the Preparatory Chemistry course increase their CHEM 111 grade by an average of one letter grade. Math SAT scores were established to be a clear predictor of a student’s success in General Chemistry. Overall, this study conclusively shows that taking the Preparatory Chemistry course increases student success in General Chemistry.