The school year is crowded. Public holidays, sports days, reporting deadlines, co-curricular activities, QCS practice, pastoral care initiatives, together with shortened lessons for school assemblies and ceremonies all cut into the time available for teaching and learning. It often seems that there is barely time available for the minimum 55 hours per semester required by the Senior Science syllabi. This is especially true of the second semester in year 12 when Seniors finish early in order to fit in with state reporting deadlines. Emphasis on long duration non-test assessment such as EEIs and ERTs mean there is less time available for basic concepts and skills. There is a danger that students will not develop a good grounding in writing formulas, balancing equations, stoichiometry, periodicity, and structure and bonding.

If the recommended minimum time of four weeks for an EEI is adhered to then available time for teaching other topic in Chemistry is significantly reduced. ERTs have a similar effect on student learning although the requirement of two weeks minimum class time is less. Having tutored students from schools where the assessment is divided evenly between test and non- test I can say that their grasp of fundamental concepts definitely seems weaker than students from schools where the emphasis is on exams. For this reason I have always advocated a minimalist approach to non – test assessment in schools where I’ve taught Chemistry. I believe this leads to enhanced student outcomes. In my experience students suffer less stress and learn more Chemistry when they are not asked to spend many hours constructing EEI reports and ERT essays. Evidence that supports my belief are the high proportion of my Chemistry students who achieve VHA’s (usually over 20% of the cohort) and comments from former students that their high-school Chemistry gave them an excellent grounding for first year University Chem.

As Science teachers we will always face the dilemma of what aspects of our subject to continue to teach as  being  ‘fundamental’ to its understanding and which aspects have to be left for later specialised studies. I do not believe emphasising EEIs and ERTs in a Chemistry teaching program is a solution to this.Too often students have to investigate concepts in Chemistry or Physics that are beyond the scope of high-school Science or are trying to collect data of detail or precision beyond the limits of school laboratory equipment. Good design of EEI tasks will avoid this; however I have seen students from other schools struggling with concepts such as the detailed Chemistry of marine artefact restoration or of the Physics of resonance of wine glasses. The danger of poor design of ERT or EEI tasks is that students are faced with the predicament of either dealing with a topic in a superficial way or of going into depth beyond their understanding and quoting formulas and research articles that neither they nor their teacher can understand. The net result of such tasks is that students spend a lot of time learning about a very narrow aspect of Chemistry or Physics and that they may not even understand what they are investigating. They would gain a far better understanding of Chemistry or Physics by spending the time on broader, more guided studies.

Lastly, an ironic consequence of EEIs is that even though they are an ‘experimental’ investigation, they can result in limiting the amount of practical laboratory manipulative skills a student will experience during the two year course. A term spent on spectroscopy or wine-making means less time for titration or gravimetric analysis. In contrast, a regular program of small experiments mean students can incrementally build their lab skills over the two year course.

In summary, I believe that many Chemistry work programs have too much emphasis on non-test assessment. Many EEIs and ERTs are poorly designed and cause undue stress to students while limiting their overall understanding of Chemistry. While formulating hypotheses, designing experiments, researching literature, and learning practical skills are essential aspects of a high-school Chemistry course, there are much better ways to cover these than by the current QSA emphasis on EEIs and ERTs.