‘What do you think the aims of doing a practical chemistry course are?’ A comparison of the views of students and teaching staff across three universities

Abstract

The aims of teaching laboratories is an important and ever-evolving topic of discussion amongst teaching staff at teaching institutions. It is often assumed that both teaching staff and students are implicitly aware of these aims, although this is rarely tested or measured. This assumption can lead to mismatched beliefs between students and teaching staff and, if not corrected for, could lead to negative learning gains for students and become a source of frustration for teaching staff. In order to measure and identify this gap in a manner that could be readily generalised to other institutions, a single open question – ‘What do you think the aims of doing a practical chemistry course are?’ – was distributed to students and teaching staff at two Australian universities and one UK university. Qualitative analysis of the responses revealed that students and teaching staff held relatively narrow views of teaching laboratories, particularly focusing on aims more in line with expository experiences (e.g. development of practical skills or enhances understanding of theory). Whilst some differences were noted between students at the three institutions, the large amount of similarities in their responses indicated a fairly common perception of laboratory aims. Of the three groups, academics actually held the narrowest view of teaching laboratories, typically neglecting the preparation of students for the workforce or the simple increase in laboratory experience the students could gain. This study highlights gaps between the perceptions of students and teaching staff with regards to laboratory aims alongside revealing that all three groups held relatively simplified views of teaching laboratories.

What laboratory skills do students think they possess at the start of University?

“…In the Framework for Learning in the Chemistry laboratory proposed by Seery (ASAP), one of the four principles stated that laboratory courses should have some focus on practical techniques. Most instructors' expect students to learn lowerorder skills such as practical techniques in a laboratory course (Bruck, et al, 2010;Bruck and Towns, 2013;George-Williams, et al, 2018). Here we have shown students already possess the knowledge of how to perform certain techniques.…”

“…Vygotsky proposed that the amount of new knowledge a student can learn is inextricably linked to what they know already, which is termed the zone of proximal development (ZPD) (Vygotsky and Cole, 1978). In field of laboratory education there has been a great deal of discussion concerning the skills that students should learn through laboratory education (Kirschner and Meester, 1988;Hofstein and Lunetta, 2004;Reid and Shah, 2007;Bruck, et al, 2010;Bruck and Towns, 2013;George-Williams, et al, 2018). Recently, a framework for learning in the laboratory has been proposed, based upon the prior literature (Seery, et al).…”

Students’ Opinions, Views, and Perceptions of Science Laboratory Learning: A Systematic Review of the Literature

“…In terms of the purpose of laboratory learning, students' opinions included; the development of practical and scientific process skills, as well as enhancing understanding of the theoretical concepts (Dikmenli, 2009;George-Williams et al, 2018;Hanif et al, 2009), learning science by fun (Aykutlu et al, 2019;Harman et al, 2016;Sadoglu & Durukan, 2018), effective and meaningful learning (Dikmenli, 2009;Harman et al, 2016), motivation and the development of positive attitude towards science (Dikmenli, 2009), permanent learning and the application of learned concepts (Harman et al, 2016), verification of known scientific theories and principles, conceptual understanding of the nature of science, creation of a link between scientific knowledge and contemporary experiences, and the creation of a link between science, technology, and society (Dikmenli, 2009). With the use of metaphors, students described the purpose of the science laboratory as learning for curiosity, learning by direction and learning by labour (Aykutlu et al, 2019).…”

“…With the use of metaphors, students described the purpose of the science laboratory as learning for curiosity, learning by direction and learning by labour (Aykutlu et al, 2019). George-Williams et al's (2018) study stated the purpose as imparting the knowledge of scientific ways of reasoning and the appropriate use of scientific language. Also, students indicated that laboratory instruction is meant to assist them in learning about their learning abilities and developing everyday scientific problem-solving and critical thinking skills (Yildirim, 2016).…”

“…Interestingly, students held the view that laboratory instruction was meant to help tactile learners more because it afforded them greater opportunities to engage in their preferred styles of learning (Russel & Weaver, 2008). Also, cited were purposes such as to repeat and reinforce lecture content (Russel & Weaver, 2008), the enhancement of theoretical understanding, development of practical skills, gaining of laboratory experience (George-Williams et al, 2018), and preparation for the workforce and development of transferable skills (Burrows et al, 2017). However, a section of the students' included the verification of scientific theories and laws (Dikmenli, 2009).…”