Research by Popova explored students' abilities to extract information from RCDs by identifying intermediates . Liang-Lin et al. expanded on existing research using a mixed methods study using survey and interview data to gauge students' abilities to identify and construct RCDs that explain the distribution of major and minor products . The findings indicated that students were 50 more successful in recognizing and constructing the RCD for the Zaitsev elimination, in which the product was kinetically and thermodynamically favored. As an extension of these findings, this communication reports on findings that assess students' abilities to identify kinetic and thermodynamic parameters for the Aldol and Claisen condensation reactions, to which the kinetics and thermodynamic components of these reactions are not in alignment with one another . The 55 two research questions probed in the study are: