Evaluating the Impact of the “Teaching as a Chemistry Laboratory Graduate Teaching Assistant” Program on Cognitive and Psychomotor Verbal Interactions in the Laboratory

The first-year undergraduate laboratory course in chemistry at the University of Bristol has been changed in an attempt to have students focus on learning practical skills, rather than on their experimental results. Analysis revealed a misalignment between the stated aims of the coursedeveloping basic practical skills and developing laboratory awarenessand its assessment, which awarded marks for online quizzes and experimental outcomes. Redesigning the course to allow a great deal of formative assessment, dialogic feedback, and the assessment of actual practical skills has produced good levels of learning, engagement, and student satisfaction.

Section: Other Aspectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Constructively Aligned First-Year Laboratory Course

Adams

2020

“…A recent instrument, the MLLI 36 was designed to address this issue, and it has allowed researchers to study how aspects of the affective domain in the laboratory change over time 37 and on the basis of an intervention. 38,39 Additionally, it has been used to categorize student profiles. 40 Another example of an affective instrument developed specifically for the laboratory is the chemistry laboratory anxiety instrument (CLAI).…”

Section: Differences Between Traditional and Alternative Environmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Affective Differences between a Virtual General Chemistry Experiment and a Similar Hands-On Experiment

Hensen

Barbera

2019

To date, few general chemistry laboratory studies have included affective measures despite calls for more research on aspects of this domain. This shortage of studies may be partially due to the scarcity of affective measures that have been designed for, or tested in, the college laboratory setting. To provide measures for use in this environment, several existing affective scales were adapted for this new context. Before data from the scales were utilized to study the environment, evidence was provided for the validity and reliability of the data generated from them. Once sufficient evidence was provided, it was possible to determine affective differences between students completing a Beer’s law experiment in the traditional hands-on laboratory (control group) and a similar experiment in a virtual environment (treatment group). To assess expected differences between environments, scales for anxiety, emotional satisfaction, intellectual accessibility, usefulness of lab, equipment usability, and open-endedness of lab were selected. To account for potential between-student differences, scales for feeling-related initial interest and value-related initial interest were selected. Overall, students who completed the virtual experiment scored significantly lower on the emotional satisfaction, intellectual accessibility, usefulness of lab, and equipment usability scales. However, it was noted that student responses in the virtual environment varied significantly by which teaching assistant (TA) instructed the section. To test for a possible instructor effect, data from the virtual sections were grouped by TA as “Virtual Group A” and “Virtual Group B”. Group A contained the TAs who had sections with lower averages on the emotional satisfaction scale as compared to group B. After controlling for instructor, differences between student responses in the “Hands-On” sections and “Virtual Group A” sections were no longer significant while significant differences remained between the responses in the “Hands-On” and “Virtual Group B” sections. This outcome indicated that the TA instructing the course may have been more influential on students’ affective outcomes than the environment in which the experiment was performed.

“…In this case, students were less convinced that utilizing Snapchat had a positive effect on enhancing their lab practice (an average of just 2.95/5.00), with just 30% agreeing with the statement. This may be attributed to the portfolio of other resources available to students, specifically designed to enhance their lab skills such as skills training, walkthrough videos, online content, and training provided by Graduate Teaching Assistants. − Learning gains associated with watching Snaps on experimental techniques have not been determined and would be likely to significantly differ in magnitude depending on the nature and number of other learning resources available to students on different degree programs.…”

Section: Student Perceptions Of the Use Of Snapchat In Teaching Chemi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Utilizing Snapchat To Facilitate Engagement with and Contextualization of Undergraduate Chemistry

Hurst

2018

Snapchat is a social media platform with the ability to share media and network with others. The platform has been applied with lower division undergraduate students studying chemistry, biochemistry, and natural sciences. Approximately 140 students followed a "class" account where both images and videos were shared with the aim of allowing them to contextualize subject knowledge in the real world, demonstrate practical setups in the laboratory, and provide an insight into research environments and life as an academic in chemistry. Upon surveying the students, with a 43% response rate, students overwhelmingly agreed that they feel more engaged with chemistry through using Snapchat in this manner (4.32/5.00) and together with it being a useful tool to contextualize their knowledge in chemistry in the real world and their degree program (4.32/5.00). As such, instructors using Snapchat in this way could enhance student engagement with chemistry together with facilitating the ability of students to understand how chemistry can be applied to affect their daily lives.