Three-Step Method to Teach Inductive Effect (Journal Article)

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Abstract: The inductive effect is one of the very important concepts of electronic effects in organic chemistry. In traditional teaching methods, only the origin, transmission mode, and decay of the inductive effect are introduced briefly, which is not conducive to students’ complete understanding of the inductive effect. This work developed a new method to teach inductive effect, named the “Three-step Method” (TsM): (1) establishing the concept of inductive effect; (2) evaluating the transmission distance of inductive effect qualitatively; and (3) determining the attenuation factor of inductive effect quantitatively. In the TsM, the group electronegativity, nuclear magnetic resonance chemical shift of H atom, and data fitting method are employed to discuss the origin, transmission mode, transmission distance, and attenuation factor of the inductive effect. The TsM of this paper is intuitive and simple, and takes less than 10 minutes in the classroom, which can help students to understand the concept of inductive effect in-depth and to cultivate students’ molecular structure–property reasoning ability.