Introduction

This chapter explores growing body of work shaped by a research project aiming to promote the advancement of the scholarship of teaching and learning, through the implementation of classroom research at the University of Aveiro, Portugal. It describes the teaching, learning and assessment strategies that were designed and implemented in the chemistry course for first-year students in order to stimulate higher-order thinking. The chapter presents a brief literature review on learning and teaching chemistry in higher education and on approaches to learning. The Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST) consists of three sections. The first section refers to the conceptions of learning. The second section consists of 52 items that assess study approaches in three different dimensions: deep, strategic and surface. The last section of ASSIST includes eight items measuring the preferences for different types of learning and teaching. Students using a surface approach seem to lack awareness about the real meaning and purpose of the learning tasks.