provocative opinion Lab is a Puzzle, not an Illustration Miles Pickering Princeton University, Princeton, Ny 08544 Ono ofthe disadvantages of being a lab curriculum design- cr is that your friends regale you with horror stories about student labs that they took as undergrads. A friend of mine, now a theoretical physicist, tells that when he was taking freshman physics lab, they were required to do an inclined. plane experiment to illustrate Newton's law. Unfortunately, hhis data fitted perfectly the equation F = ma®. He therefore ‘wrote down “Newton was wrong,” and received a zero. This, of course, firmly convinced him that the point of student labs isto verify the already-known, and soe to those whose data don’t agree. Nevertheless, the story raises interesting questions, Should the students have been asked to “illustrate” New- ton’s law, a result already known” Can anyone “prove” any- thing in & single afternoon? Do we really want students to tell us what we'd like to hear, or tolearn to reason intelligent: ly about inconsistencies? In a larger sense, is the point of lab to illustrate some- thing? If so, what? At one time, when chemistry was a com- pilation of facts about the natural history of matter, illustra- tion made sense. Burning white phosphorus has an immes acy that the textbook statement that “white phosphorus ‘burns energetically” doss not. Yet we go on insisting that lab illustrate what is now a very abstract science indeed. Consider a classic organic experiment—the dehydration of methyl cyclohexanol. Does this really illustrate earboca- tion chemistry? No. No matter how closely the student looks at the reaction mixture, he or she will never see any earboca- tions floating in it. The carbocation is a construct, a way of tying together a vast amount of laboratory experimental data. At best, therefore, this lab experiment is just one case ‘of carbocation chemistry. And, if the student knows about, carbocation stability relationships, then the experience is ‘one of verifying what is “supposed! to happen. However, the same manipulations in the lab could be given depth and made into a genuine scientific experience by. simply asking the question this way: “Methyl cyclohexanol, ‘can dehydrate to yield one or both of two products. Do the reaction in the lab, identily the product(s)” Then at some future time this result could be the starting point of a lec- ture. The differences not in the manipulations done by the student, the difference is the way the question is asked. 7 Piekering, ML, and Monts, DL J. One Eovc., 68, 784 (1982). 2 Pickering, Mand Crabtree, A H.,J. Crem, Duc. 86,487 (1979), 3 Johastono, AH, J Cie, EDUC, 60, 968 (1983) ‘Prolab preparation Is, of Cours, necessary. Ou’ method inthe {roshmnan abs at Princeton has boen more tohave aru that hol book not be brought into the lab room. This rakes he student develop sor her own system of preparation, in asalt-oliant way. tis 643) to fentorce, and ed be, stages can always look at thelr books inthe al 874 Journal of Chemical Education Lab should be a puzzle to be solved, nota vist to the land of the already-known. Training in technique is hardly im: portant for the vast majority of our clientele who will not be chemists, but the art of logical deduction from data is. If the student is provided with a question to be put to Nature “‘goofproot” procedure to gonerate data, and then is forced to make a logical choice hetween alternatives based on real data, then he or she has gone through the mental process of| experimental science. If the experimental results are not anticipated from naive chemical theory, so much the better. If lab is to illustrate something, let it be the scientific method. It is logical thinking, the willingness to be bound by the data, that is the hallmark of science. One can argue that the true value is different from the measured value, but one ean only do so by invoking a logical argument about systematic error. One can’t airly dismiss the results, as our students often do.! ‘To summarize, I am advocating an empirical lab—each experiment should contain a precise question about matter, and when the student has followed the procedure given, the answer will he deducible with some help from theory. This ‘means that great precision must go into formulation of ques tions as well as procedures. We should not ask students to demonstrate Newton's law, but rather to show that their data are consistent with it within experimental error. ‘One of the most interesting findings of recent educational research is that students in laboratories can't think about, both the manipulative aspects and the theory at the same time.!3This research helps explain the common observation that if you ask a student what is being done in the lab, the answer will usually be in terms of operations, ie. “distilling the AB mixture.” This research also shows why’ labelling section of a lab protocol “theory” is a license for it to be ignored. The student knows what matters first and foremost is the sequence of operations in the lab, and that this alone is hard enough, If this research is even basically correct, almost all tradi tional devices to force students to prepare for lab (quizzes, ‘questionnaires, and lab lectures) are misdirected, in that they dwell on’ mastery of theory, something that can be taught much more naturally at report writing time.‘ At this point, the manipulations done, the student will be receptive to the theory, because he or she needs to know it to make sense of the results. The empirical lab is therefore much better adapted to the way students really think than is the traditional style of lab. ‘A distinction needs to be made between the empirical lab, and the “discovery” lab. The discovery lab expects the stu: dent to generalize from data, or to use some part of the results from the first part of the experiment to modify the subsequent procedure. ‘The student can do experimental ‘work atone time, and generalize at another, but to do both at,the same time is apparently beyond a beginner's range. Di ‘covery labs co work, but seem to depend, in most eases, on a particularly skilled teacher who can pull facts together and catalyze the discovery in a Socratic way So the empirical lab does not attempt to teach the art of ‘creating new procedures. Rather, it i related to research as, ‘musical performance is related to musical composition. Not ‘everyone can compose a fugue, but everybody can learn to play an (already composed) tune on a harmonica. Real re- search prohably can't be simulated beyond a certain point by ‘teaching laboratory. There are things that can't be ex- plained to a virgin. ‘The empirical lab can be graded on logic. Do the student's results support his or her conclusion, not what the naive ‘theory would predict? If the answer is self contradictory, ‘does the student realize this, and use intelligent systematic error arguments to cope with it? Logical argument ean be assessed traditionally using lab reports, or nontraditionally bbut with equal success, using exams.* But it must be reward: ‘ed. If'students emerge from lab courses knowing that data is to be ignored unless it agrees with “Authority,” we've gone back to medievalism, Everyone, student and faculty, feels that lab must be ‘about something. What the lab is about is the doing of science. Not the illustration ofits principles, not the mastery of finger skills, and not even the invention of new proce: dures, In the end, lab is to teach the art of thinking from ata, and our commitment to itis a commitment not only te the scientific method, but also to the transcendent power o! human reason. 5 Pickering, M.. and Goldstein, S. L., J. Ciew. Eovc., 54, 315 (977). Volume 62 Number 10 October 1985 a7t