Participation in a High-Structure General Chemistry Course Increases Student Sense of Belonging and Persistence to Organic Chemistry

A parallel series of general chemistry courses for LifeScienceMajors was created in an effort to support students and improve generalchemistry outcomes. We created a two-quarter enhanced general chemistrycourse series that is not remedial, but instead implements severalevidence-based teaching practices including Process Oriented GuidedInquiry Learning (POGIL), Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL), and the LearningAssistant (LA) model. We found that students who took enhanced generalchemistry had higher persistence to the subsequent first organic chemistrycourse, and performed equally well in the organic course comparedto their peers who took standard general chemistry. Students in thefirst enhanced general chemistry course also reported significantlyhigher belonging, although we were unable to determine if increasedbelonging was associated with the increased persistence to organicchemistry. Rather we found that the positive association between takingthe enhanced general chemistry course and persistence to organic chemistrywas mediated by higher grades received in the enhanced general chemistrycourse. Our findings highlight the responsibility we have as educatorsto carefully consider the pedagogical practices we use, in additionto how we assign student grades.