Effects on the students results of organic chemistry subjects in two languages from a perspective of gender

Abstract

In the field of Organic Chemistry, the students of the Degree in Chemistry at the University of Alicante can take subjects of the area either in Spanish or in English. The students’ results have been analyzed to corroborate that the language used during the teaching-learning process does not influence the results. However, small differences have been observed in favor of the English groups due to the size of this teaching group. In general, students do not considered that a foreign language has been an obstacle when acquiring the competences of the corresponding subject. Students consider knowledge of specific terminology in English to be beneficial for their professional future. Despite this, the number of students taking the subjects in English is around a quarter of the total. Moreover, data has also been analyzed from a gender perspective, proving that there are no significant differences between the gender populations. There is a similarity in terms of results between both populations regardless of the subject, academic year or language teaching group.