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The percentage of students choosing the correct answer (PSCA) on 17 multiple-choice algorithmic questions taken from general chemistry exams is analyzed. PSCAs for these questions varied from 47 to 93%, and a decrease of 4.5% in PSCA was observed with each additional step in the algorithm required for solving the problem (R2 = 0.80). Variants of a subset of these questions were also examined and reveal the effect of making changes to a particular algorithmic question on the ability of students to choose the correct answer.
Hartman et al. (Thu,) studied this question.