In the present study, we adopted paired questions from Nakhleh's paper (6). These questions could help to identify the second-tier students in general chemistry classes by studying differential performance on conceptual and algorithmic questions. Each of the five pairs of questions deals with a particular area of general chemistry (gas laws, equations, limiting reagents, empirical formulas, and density). Within each pair, other than algorithmic and conceptual questions, a third questionnaire was added to ask students about their preference for either algorithmic or conceptual problems.

During years of teaching in both majority and minority institutions, the authors have observed that a large proportion of minority students are more interested in concepts than in algorithmic aspects of chemistry problems. The authors assumed that FAMU students might contain a relatively higher concentration of conceptual thinkers than of algorithmic problem solvers. Other quantitative characteristics were also preliminarily explored.