People

Maia Popova

Education

B.S., Ivanovo State University, Russia (2013)
Ph.D., Miami University, Ohio (2018)
Post Doc, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Nebraska (2019)

Research

Research in the Popova Group focuses on the development of organic chemistry students’ representational competence, as learning and communicating with representations is an essential component of modern chemistry instruction. Our research will provide critical insights to support students in their learning and faculty in their teaching of organic chemistry.

The main objectives of our research program are:

• to explore organic chemistry instructors’ beliefs and practices toward developing representational competence in their courses
• to investigate organic chemistry students’ understandings of domain-specific representations
• to design evidence-based instructional materials to enhance students’ representational competence

For more information about our team, research projects, and news, check out our website: https://chem.uncg.edu/popova/

We are looking for team members (undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral scholars) with enthusiasm for investigating the best practices of teaching and learning of chemistry!

Representative Publications

1. Popova, M.; Bretz, S. L.; Organic chemistry students’ interpretations of the surface features of reaction coordinate diagrams. Educ. Res. Pract. 2018, 19, 919-931
2. Popova, M.; Bretz, S. L.; Organic chemistry students’ understandings of what makes a good leaving group. Chem. Educ. 2018, 95 (7), 1094-1101
3. Popova, M.; Bretz, S. L.; “It’s only the major product that we care about in organic chemistry:” An analysis of students’ annotations of reaction coordinate diagrams. Chem. Educ. 2018, 95 (7), 1086-1093
4. Popova, M.; Bretz, S. L.; Organic chemistry students’ challenges with coherence formation between reactions and reaction coordinate diagrams. Educ. Res. Pract. 2018, 19, 732-745
5. Popova, M.; Bretz, S. L.; Hartley, C. S. Visualizing molecular chirality in the organic chemistry laboratory using cholesteric liquid crystals. Chem. Educ. 2016, 93, 1096-1099