Developing Awareness of Professional Behaviors and Skills in the First-Year Chemistry Laboratory

Abstract

Students in first-year chemistry classes come from a variety of backgrounds, with many students unaware of the qualities and behaviours of a professional scientist. Throughout their degree, students will gradually develop their cognitive skills, but they may not be adequately taught or assessed on their professional behavioural skills as a scientist until late in the undergraduate course. By assessing the professional skills of students in first-year chemistry practical classes, this innovation commenced the development of students' professional identity from the beginning of their university experience. The skills that were assessed included preparedness, cooperation in the group activities, working safely in the laboratory and time management. By engaging students with professional behaviours and what it means to be a scientist during their first semester, students can potentially carry this through their whole undergraduate degree. This task was received positively by students and staff with over 50% of students believing it increased their confidence in the laboratory. Staff also saw a significant improvement in student behaviour and engagement because of this task. Graphical Abstract

Survey of Undergraduate Students’ Goals and Achievement Strategies for Laboratory Coursework

“…Students’ selections for a least important goal are not well aligned with faculty goals for undergraduate chemistry laboratory based upon prior research. − An interesting finding pertains to the goal “ To develop my scientific writing skills ” (G3), which the majority of the students believe is either an important or least important goal. Other researchers have highlighted the importance of students developing scientific communication skills and have created courses and laboratory activities to aid in developing these skills, yet the students do not prioritize this in a traditional general chemistry lab course. − In previous work, faculty brought up safety in lab as a goal, and national organizations have ongoing efforts to promote a safety culture . It was found in this study that many students do not prioritize safety, as 20% of the participants selected the goal concerning safety as a least important goal.…”

Interacting with Three-Dimensional Molecular Structures Using an Augmented Reality Mobile App

“…The pretrial survey aimed to collect data on the control variables which may have interfered with the main data, and as such, the results from this survey are only significant in conjunction with the data collected in the post-trial survey. Both surveys had statements (on a five-point Likert scale) that specifically addressed one of the three more malleable control variables (self-efficacy, learning aptitude, and interest in chemistry). − The results from the two surveys were compared against each other to determine whether there had been any significant change in the control variables (Table ). The responses ( N = 87) reported that 45% of the respondents felt more confident with their understanding of the nucleophilic addition mechanism after using NuPOV.…”

Skills for Success: Student-Focused, Chemistry-Based, Skills-Developing, Open-Ended Project Work

“…Skills for Success culminates in a two-week reflection phase. Reflection is common in many areas of vocational education (see references in Chadwick et al 31 ), but although it has been shown to enhance skills 35 and conceptual development 36 in the laboratory, it can be overlooked in a content-heavy chemistry course. 10 Skills for Success puts aside time for students to critically reflect on their work before writing a reflective essay including both an account and a reflection on what they did.…”

“…Kee and Ryder suggested students consider their assignments to be of greater importance than the skills used to do them . To mitigate against this, a third way to develop skills in the curriculum is to embed them alongside chemistry teaching ,− using targeted activities to bring skills to the fore where needed.…”