Developing an understanding of undergraduate student interactions in chemistry laboratories

Abstract

Laboratories play a crucial role in the undergraduate science curriculum and the effectiveness of learning in laboratories is influenced by learners’ interactions with other students, the instructors, and the equipment used. In this study, a pre-lab survey was used to collect information about students’ expectations of interactions in chemistry laboratories and how they can be ranked according to their importance. Post-lab surveys were used to capture students’ perspectives about the frequency of interactions that existed in laboratory sessions they had completed. Direct observations of some laboratories were also conducted principally to validate students’ self-reported interactions. The data were also sorted by three levels of student achievement in order to relate students’ expectations of the importance of different interactions (pre-lab survey) and their self-reported frequency of interactions (post-lab survey) with their laboratory grades. Results from the pre-lab survey showed that student–instructor interactions were anticipated to be the most important ahead of conducting the laboratory activity, whereas results from the post-lab surveys showed that the most frequent interactions occurred between students. Students’ self-reports (post-lab survey) and the direct observations agreed well suggesting that the post-lab survey is a robust tool for capturing the frequencies of student interactions in this and future studies. The results also showed that students gaining high grades both anticipated the importance of, and then engaged more frequently in, two-way communications with both students and instructors whereas students with lower grades placed a relatively higher reliance upon passive interactions such as the pre-lab briefing, the laboratory manual and internet sources. Finally, recommendations are offered to curriculum designers, instructors and students based on the overall findings of the study.

Impact of remote experimentation, interactivity and platform effectiveness on laboratory learning outcomes

“…While physical laboratories have been well researched from theoretical perspective through multiple types of student interactions (Komorek & Kattmann, 2008 ; Wei et al., 2018 ), such studies on remote laboratories are sparse (Wei et al., 2019 ). The significant contributions of this paper are (1) designing a remote lab such as RT-UTM that allows greater flexibility in performance of 5 experiments in comparison to its equivalent physical UTM lab, (2) capturing the structure and interactivity of PL-UTM and RT-UTM through the Transactional distance theory (TDT) and ultimately (3) conceptual understanding in remote vs physical and integrated remote and physical lab environments through (4) the development and implementation of two survey instruments.…”

Understanding interactions in face-to-face and remote undergraduate science laboratories: a literature review

“…In face-to-face laboratories, Student-Equipment Interactions and Indirect Interactions have mainly been neglected as compared with the two types of interpersonal interactions (Student-Student and Student-Instructor). Except for one article (Wei et al, 2018), no studies in science laboratories were found that included these types of interactions. It is suggested for curriculum designers and instructors to be aware of the importance of these two types of interactions (S-E and I-I).…”

“…It was also concluded that in the biology laboratories, the TAs had more important influences than the laboratory content on the students' attitudes. Another example was made by (Wei et al, 2018), in which a self-designed pre-lab survey was conducted to collect information about the importance of interactions before the commencement of the laboratory, and a post-lab survey was used to measure the frequency of interactions after the completion of the laboratory activity. The results from the survey were validated by the results of on-site observations.…”

“…Similar to previous frameworks which emphasize the importance of the environment on learning, Komorek and Kattmann (2008) developed the Model of Educational Reconstruction (MER), referring to the interconnection of science content, students' perspectives and learning environment. Wei et al (2018) applied this model to a study of interactions in science laboratories.…”

Picture boards as demonstrator aids for pre-practical briefings.

“…Wei et al provide excellent insight into what undergraduates expect from interactions in their practical class, stressing that students perceive the pre-lab interaction with instructors as "mostimportant" (Wei et al, 2018). It is generally accepted that some form of pre-laboratory exercise can help students prepare for laboratory practical classes (Agustian & Seery, 2017;Chaytor, Al Mughalaq & Butler, 2017).…”