The pedagogical implications of using MATLAB in integrated chemistry
and mathematics courses

Lars Öhrström^a, Göran Svensson^a, Stig Larsson^b, Michael Christie^c,
and Claes Niklasson^a

Int. J. Engrg. Education 21 (2005), 683-691. 

a Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, 
b School of Mathematical Sciences,  
c Centre for Digital Media and Higher Education,

Chalmers University of Technology 
SE-412 96 Göteborg, Sweden

Abstract

The last years the undergraduate chemistry and mathematics courses at
Chalmers Tekniska Högskola (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden)
has undergone a major curriculum reform. One of the driving motives
behind the reform was that students should learn to use mathematics as
a real tool for solving chemical problems. Mathematicians and
chemists, with pedagogical help from an educational expert, changed
the traditional course structure in terms of organisation, content,
and teaching and learning methods. This paper concentrates on the use
of MATLAB in laboratory work and in individual and group
assignments. It deals, in particular, with the pedagogical benefits
that the designers of the new course saw in presenting real chemical
problems that could be solved using applied mathematics and the MATLAB
software.  Student experience was evaluated both by the teachers and
the educational consultant and responses are largely
positive. Increased student learning can be seen through higher
motivation and synergy effects of treating chemical problems in the
MATLAB tutorials. The most serious problem is to give all students the
necessary MATLAB skills and a risk is an overestimation of the MATLAB
proficiency in subsequent courses leading to un-proportional workload
on projects and little time for reading and study.