Quantitative Determination of Aluminum in Deodorant Brands: A Guided Inquiry Learning Experience in Quantitative Analysis Laboratory

Abstract

The monitoring of metals in commercial products is essential for protecting public health against the hazards of metal toxicity. This article presents a guided inquiry (GI) experimental lab approach in a quantitative analysis lab class that enabled students' to determine the levels of aluminum in deodorant brands. The utility of a GI experimental lab introduced in the quantitative analysis lab class as part of an active learning hands-on-experience approach enhances student learning, improves students' critical thinking and problem solving skills, and motivates underrepresented students to work independently in solving a real-world scenario-type problem. Students were required to develop certain lab skills at the start of the semester and apply these skills toward the end of the semester to investigate the GI project. The GI project that analyzes for aluminum improves the overall student engagement, enthusiasm for the quantitative analysis laboratory course, and even the overall success rate in scientific report writing.

A Stepwise Inquiry Approach to Improving Communication Skills and Scientific Attitudes on a Biochemistry Course

“…Inquiry is divided into four levels, namely verification (level 0), structured inquiry (level 1), guided inquiry (level 2), and open inquiry (level 3) (Fay et al, 2007). The use of open and guided inquiry has been reported to be able to improve student understanding in chemistry learning (Allen et al, 1986;Bartholow, 2007;Conway, 2014;Johnson & Graham, 2015;Rens & Schee, 2009;Sedwick et al, 2018;Winkelmann et al, 2015;Xu & Talanquer, 2013). However, the direct application of guided and open inquiry may make students uncomfortable because they are accustomed to conducting investigations with procedures as directed by lecturers (Chatterjee et al, 2009;Cheung, 2011).…”

Enhancing distance learning of science—Impacts of remote labs 2.0 on students' behavioural and cognitive engagement

“…The student-teacher-lab interaction heatmap shows highly synchronous interactions between the intensity of student's feature Compared with previous generations of remote labs that are more fixated on the experimental subject and design, remote labs 2.0 will preserve a higher degree of open-endedness of authentic science investigations, increase student agency, and foster student-teacher interactions. In other words, the instructional model may provide a promising avenue to incorporate student's experimental design (Farley et al, 2021) that is grounded in the shared responsibility of instructors and students (Sedwick et al, 2018). By so doing, one's self-efficacy in scientific inquiry and practices can also be cultivated.…”

“…Others criticized that the inquiry-aligned curricula are too cumbersome to foster targeted understanding systematically (Eastwell & MacKenzie, 2009). Indeed, inquiry-based labs require an intentional instructional design to scaffold learning processes and keep learners cognitively engaged (Sedwick et al, 2018;Shea & Bidjerano, 2009). Labs that adopt guided inquiry may enculturate the classroom ecology of shared duty on labdesign ideation before moving to the next steps of the investigations (Farley et al, 2021;Sedwick et al, 2018).…”

“…Indeed, inquiry-based labs require an intentional instructional design to scaffold learning processes and keep learners cognitively engaged (Sedwick et al, 2018;Shea & Bidjerano, 2009). Labs that adopt guided inquiry may enculturate the classroom ecology of shared duty on labdesign ideation before moving to the next steps of the investigations (Farley et al, 2021;Sedwick et al, 2018). Since conducting experiments in physical labs is disrupted during the pandemic, it is urgent to search for an avenue that could foster the teacher-student interactions mentioned above and support scientific experimentation in online settings.…”

Validity of guided inquiry-based modules on digestive system to improve argumentation skill

“…The argumentation skill of students can also be developed by implementing Guided Inquiry. Guided inquiry is inquiry that facilitates students to develop skills through the use of various sources of information (Hendarto, Rinanto, & Ramli, 2016;Mistry, Fitzpatrick, & Gorman, 2016;Sedwick, Leal, Turner, & Kanu, 2018;Toh, Cheng, Ho, Jiang, & Lim, 2017). Students will be faced with various contextual problems that require the ability to think and solve problems through practicum to prove the hypothesis that has been made (Hendarto et al, 2016).…”