An Evaluation of the Efficacy and Transferability of a Nanoscience Module

The increasingly large role nanoscience plays in improving our everyday lives calls for the current young generation to be adequately trained in this field. However, despite the publicity nanoscience has received, the comparative lack of educational materials aimed at familiarizing students with the basic concepts and ideas of nanoscience has prevented educators from providing systematic instruction. As a first step to address this problem, we developed a nanoscience module for college students and implemented it in a nonmajor materials science course. A pre- and posttest comparison approach was used to evaluate the efficacy of this module. A randomized experiment was also conducted to assess its transferability; i.e., the potential for this module to be disseminated and delivered by another instructor.