Measuring student engagement in the undergraduate general chemistry laboratory

Abstract

In this study a survey was developed to investigate students’ engagement during general chemistry laboratory sessions. Aspects of engagement surveyed included cognitive, behavioral, and emotional engagement, and the survey items were focused on activities during the pre-laboratory introduction, laboratory procedures, and data collection. Exploratory factor analysis of the results was conducted to determine the various underlying factors in the survey, and the scores of the general chemistry laboratory students along these underlying factors were compared. The findings supported the various dimensions of engagement reported in the literature.

Modifying the ASPECT Survey to Support the Validity of Student Perception Data from Different Active Learning Environments

“…For example, some observational protocols have been developed to evaluate student engagement during class such as the Behavioral Engagement Related to Instruction ( 21 ) and the ICAP framework ( 22 ). Additionally, some survey measures have been developed to assess different dimensions of student engagement in higher education STEM classrooms ( 23 ) and laboratories ( 24 ).…”

Remote Teaching of Programming in Mathematica: Lessons Learned

“…In this way we would aim to increase the help available to all students, increase their productivity, and bring the time taken for exercise completion more in line with our expectation. By aligning our proposed credit hours more with the time that students take to complete each exercise we should maintain a greater student focus and, hence, make these activities greater teaching aids through improved student engagement. , …”

“…By aligning our proposed credit hours more with the time that students take to complete each exercise we should maintain a greater student focus and, hence, make these activities greater teaching aids through improved student engagement. 16…”

Response Process Validity Evidence in Chemistry Education Research

“…One such change involved the words 'excited' and 'intrigued' in some of the survey items; students indicated that such words were too enthusiastic, and that the word 'interested' would be more fitting, which reinforced the importance of such item wording". 55 Though there is no single or "best" approach for analyzing and modifying items based on cognitive interview data, readers will benefit from the explicit descriptions of such investigations whenever possible. To best highlight how and why students interpret items during instrument development/modification for the research community, reports can explicitly describe:…”

“…Regardless of context, we recommend that authors of future studies justify the depth and breadth of the methods they use based on the intentions and/or limitations of the response process investigation . Though there is no single or “best” approach for analyzing and modifying items based on cognitive interview data, readers will benefit from the explicit descriptions of such investigations whenever possible.…”