Barbera Lab
Research in the Barbera group revolves around how educators and researchers measure student outcomes in chemistry.
We study student outcomes with regard to both the acquisition of chemistry content knowledge as well as through changes in many of the affective components important for learning (e.g., motivation, self-efficacy, interest). Our interest in measuring these components is to improve what the chemistry education community knows about how students learn. In the classroom, our research tools and results help to provide robust evidence of the impacts of various educational practices. In the chemistry education research community, our studies provide new or modified assessment instruments that are informed by best practices in educational measurement.
Our group utilizes qualitative and quantitative research methodologies throughout our studies. This combination of depth of understanding, provided by small-scale qualitative studies and large-scale quantitative analysis, provides the broadest range of evidence to support our findings. Our quantitative methodologies range from general descriptive (e.g., mean, mode, normality) and comparative (e.g., t-test, ANOVA, chi-squared) statistics to more elaborate methods (e.g., Rasch, IRT, CFA, SEM).
Learn more about Dr. Barbera and other members of the group.
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Graduate Program in CER Details
The graduate program in chemistry education research (CER) prepares students to make original research contributions to the field of chemistry education. Advanced chemistry content knowledge is gained through coursework and a curriculum development project in a cognate area.

Ongoing projects
Ongoing research is involved in improving what the chemistry education community knows about how students learn so as to inform best practices in student education.

Publications
Regular publications by Dr. Barbera and students in his lab group highlight some of the research happening in the department.