Research Questions

Does the General Chemistry Lab curriculum build the students' lab techniques?

Does the CURE-based General Chemistry Lab curriculum calibrate students' perceived lab technique ability?

Rationale

The development of laboratory skills is an important part of the completion of any chemistry or biochemistry degree. These skills allow students to be successful in industry, professional or graduate school. General Chemistry labs are typically done in pairs or groups, which means students can divide up the work load. This can pose an issue if one student does all of the needed pipetting for the group, whether they have good technique or not. The other members of the group, then do not develop their pipetting technique they will need for the remainder of their degree. By developing a method to measure students' laboratory technique, it will show if the students are building the necessary skills and if they have a sense of their skill level. This knowledge can be used to prepare them for success both in their upper-division courses and future careers.

Hypothesis

We hypothesize that the students will show proficiency in General Chemistry laboratory techniques and the students in the CURE-based General Chemistry lab will have a better sense of their lab technique skill level.

Approach

The students will be working towards getting a set of Digital Badges during the course. They record themselves completing a designated lab technique, while narrating their actions. The students submit the video to be graded using an 8-point rubric covering key methods needed to correctly do the lab technique. Additionally, the students answer one survey question about what percentile they think their skill ranks in the specific lab technique. This self-assessment is compared to their actual percentile based on our grading of their videos to assess their knowledge of their lab technique skills. General Chemistry II Lab has a CURE integrated into the curriculum. It is possible that those students are more accurate in self-assessing their lab technique. If the student scores enough points on their video, then they receive a Digital Badge showing they know the proper technique corresponding to Digital Badge.

There are three previously published lab technique Digital Badging rubrics (volumetric pipet, volumetric flask, and buret) that we started with for this project. We will be designing more Digital Badges that correspond to other key General Chemistry Lab techniques, which involves creating and testing rubrics that can be used by anyone on the teaching team.