Chemistry Education

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Assessing TA buy-in to expectations and

alignment of actual teaching practices in a
Cite this: DOI: 10.1039/c9rp00088g
transformed general chemistry laboratory course
Erin M. Duffy *a and Melanie M. Cooper b
Published on 02 September 2019. Downloaded on 9/7/2019 1:14:44 AM.

Received 27th March 2019,
Accepted 27th August 2019
DOI: 10.1039/c9rp00088g
rsc.li/cerp
Inquiry-style laboratory courses, in which students engage in open-ended projects rather than a
prescribed set of experimental steps (‘‘cookbooks’’), are becoming increasingly popular at the undergraduate
level. Reformed curricula require reforms in training teachers; in the case of large universities, laboratory
instructors are typically graduate teaching assistants (TAs). The General Chemistry Laboratory courses at a
large, public, research-intensive university in the Midwestern region of the United States recently underwent
a transformation from a ‘‘cookbook’’ to a project-based lab, and despite efforts to improve training, TAs
continue to express difficulty teaching the course. To determine the source of these difficulties, we
conducted multiple video observations and semi-structured interviews with seven TAs throughout one
semester. We report TAs’ beliefs about what is expected of them, their philosophical alignment to perceived
expectations, and a comparison of the Lab Coordinator’s expectations to TAs’ actual teaching practices. We
found that the TAs generally agreed with behaviors they were expected to perform, but responses to actions
they were not supposed to do indicated that they were unsure of what the Lab Coordinator expected and
personally believed that an ideal TA would perform those actions. This work highlights a need to clearly
communicate the aims and expectations in a course and the rationale for those choices.

Introduction scientific practices, such as defined by the National Research

Laboratory courses are a longstanding tradition in chemistry
degree programs. Historically, these courses were developed to
train students to become competent workers in industry
(Mabery, 1892); however, as fewer students in chemistry laboratory
courses ultimately became chemistry practitioners, the goals have
broadened beyond practical laboratory skills. By the 1960s, the
idea that laboratory courses are an opportunity for students to
engage in ‘‘inquiry’’ emerged (Hofstein and Lunetta, 1982), but
it was not until the early 2000s, with the introduction of Inquiry
and the National Science Education Standards (National Research
Council, 2000), that inquiry learning became more prominent.
In contemporary reviews of the chemistry laboratory education
literature, Hofstein and Lunetta recommended an increase of
inquiry-based laboratory courses in lieu of ‘‘cookbook’’ labs
(Hofstein and Lunetta, 2004), and Reid and Shah called for a
greater emphasis on ‘‘the process of thought and enquiry and
much less on getting a ‘right’ answer’’ (Reid and Shah, 2007).
An actionable interpretation of inquiry is to engage students in
a
Department of Chemistry, Western Washington University,
516 High St – MS 9150, Bellingham, WA 98225, USA. E-mail: duffye@wwu.edu
b
Department of Chemistry, Michigan State University, 578 South Shaw Lane,
East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA
Council’s Framework for K-12 Science Education (National
Research Council, 2012):
1. Asking questions and defining problems
2. Developing and using models
3. Planning and carrying out investigations
4. Analyzing and interpreting data
5. Using mathematics and computational thinking
6. Constructing explanations and designing solutions
7. Engaging in argument from evidence
8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information
The General Chemistry Laboratory (GCL) course sequence
discussed in this work uses an adaptation of the Cooperative
Chemistry curriculum (Cooper, 1994; Sandi-Urena et al., 2011a,
2011b), which extensively incorporates scientific practices
(Carmel et al., 2017, 2019a). This curriculum was originally
developed by the second author in the early 1990s but was
adopted by the institution’s Department of Chemistry in 2015
concurrent with a transformation of the General Chemistry
lecture curriculum (Cooper et al., 2012; Cooper and Klymkowsky,
2013; Williams et al., 2015; Underwood et al., 2016). Adoption
and adaptation of Cooperative Chemistry at this institution were
led by a new General Chemistry Laboratory Coordinator and a
former postdoctoral research associate in the second author’s
research group. The second author provided the curricular

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Table 1 Brief description of projects performed during classroom observations

Course Title of project General goals for each week

GCL1 Identification and synthesis of an  Week 1: Conduct qualitative tests to determine the identity of an unknown ionic compound
unknown ionic compound  Week 2: Confirm identity by conducting additional tests and comparing to known sample
GCL1 Food dye spectroscopy  Week 1: Experimentally determine the following relationships: wavelengths of absorbance vs.
apparent color, intensity of absorbance and concentration.
 Week 2: Identify the dyes present in a sports drink and create a solution that mimics the color
profile of the drink
GCL2 Soaps and detergents  Week 1: Synthesize soaps and detergents from various starting materials
 Week 2: Standardize acids/bases for use in analyses of wastewaters (filtrate after isolating
soap/detergent)
 Week 3: Analyze wastewaters from synthesis and determine ‘‘best’’ soap/detergent out of those
synthesized
GCL2 Artificial kidney stones  Week 1: Synthesize various water-insoluble salts that are typical of kidney stone composition
 Week 2: Compare various methods of dissolving the salts and determine the ‘‘best’’ method to
combat kidney stones
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materials as used at the originating institution, and the adoption
leaders independently adapted the materials for use at this
institution.
In Cooperative Chemistry, students work in small groups of
3 to 4 members on multi-week projects to investigate questions
or to solve problems posed by scenarios that are designed to
show the application of the kinds of problems to which the
students are responding. Students are required to determine
what needs to be done to solve the problem, design experi-
mental procedures, perform experiments, analyze and interpret
experimental data, make arguments about what the data
means, and report findings for each project. These projects
and the extent to which students engage in various scientific
practices for each project has been described previously
(Carmel et al., 2019b); for clarity, brief project descriptions
for the experiments observed in this work are shown in Table 1
with more details provided in Appendix 1.
However, while students have the opportunity to use
scientific practices in the laboratory, doing so in the context
of chemistry is nontrivial. As is common in large universities
(Luft et al., 2004), graduate teaching assistants are responsible
for teaching undergraduate students in the GCL courses at this
institution. Since the transformation of the laboratories, the
department has increased time for TA training, and efforts have
been made to better prepare TAs so that they can facilitate
learning in our reformed courses. While some of these efforts
have been led by the authors of this work, not all of these
training opportunities were specific to GCL TAs. These general
and lab-specific trainings are described in more detail in
Appendix 2.
Despite this added preparation, TAs continued to express having
difficulty with teaching the laboratory. Some of these difficulties
may be because the prior laboratory course was much more
traditional in nature, in which the TA instructed, rather than
guided, students who worked on one-week exercises by following
a given procedure to produce a known outcome. The shift to a
different type of teaching and learning experience posed a challenge
for experienced TAs who had become accustomed to teaching
‘‘cookbook’’-style labs; however, new TAs also expressed difficulties
with teaching the laboratories. TAs’ continued struggle suggests a
need to provide increased and/or improved support.
Because TAs’ instructional practices are influenced by their
beliefs about teaching and learning (Volkmann and Zgagacz,
2004; Rodriques and Bond-Robinson, 2006), we first need to
understand what our TAs think if we want to better support
them (Wheeler et al., 2015). For TAs specifically, others
(Luft et al., 2004; Boman, 2013; Flaherty et al., 2017; Wheeler
et al., 2017c; Mutambuki and Schwartz, 2018) have extensively
studied the impact of training activities on TA beliefs, which
suggest that the messages received from training are important.
More broadly, instructors in higher education (tenure-track faculty
and nontenure-track instructors) form their beliefs from a variety
of experiences: prior experiences as teachers, as students, as
researchers, and from non-academic roles (Oleson and Hora,
2014). Although TAs may have fewer prior experiences as instruc-
tors than faculty, TAs’ views are also shaped by their teaching
experiences (Wheeler et al., 2017c). Particularly relevant to this
study, TAs tend to hold different views about teaching if they lead
inquiry-based labs than traditional labs (Sandi-Urena et al., 2011a).
However, even if TAs agree with the ideas behind reformed
courses, studies in biology (Addy and Blanchard, 2010) and
physics (Goertzen et al., 2009; Wilcox et al., 2016) education
have shown that beliefs do not necessarily translate into practice.
An additional complicating factor for graduate TAs is
that they play hybrid role of students and employees of an
institution. Although the legal status of graduate assistants in
the U.S. varies by institution type (public vs. private) and across
states (Flora, 2007), the TAs in this study are recognized as
university employees with union representation. To our knowl-
edge, the impact of the supervising instructor on TAs’ instruc-
tional practices in the teaching laboratory has not been studied.
However, it is an important aspect to consider because TAs are
obligated to carry out their teaching assignments according to
the wishes of their supervisor. This is true regardless of TAs’
personal beliefs or whether or not the supervisor’s directions
are informed by research on teaching and learning. Indeed, it
may be more broadly relevant to investigate the impact of a
teaching supervisor who is not an expert in teaching and
learning because it is a likely scenario; as the American
Chemical Society Commission on Graduate Education reported,
graduate student teaching ‘‘experiences generally are not drawn
from carefully crafted programs designed to teach students how

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to teach’’ (American Chemical Society (ACS), 2012). With this in Table 2 Description of TA participants in this study
mind, we sought to determine the relationships between TA
Course Prior GCL TA Year in PhD International
behavior, TAs’ personal beliefs, and TAs’ perceptions of their Pseudonym taught experience program student?
supervisor’s expectations by conducting in-lab observations and
Giovanni GCL1 0 semesters 4 No
interviews with chemistry laboratory TAs. Our work was guided Koga GCL1 1 semester 1 Yes
by the following research questions (RQs): Surge GCL1 2 semesters 2 No
1. What do TAs believe their teaching supervisor expects Brock GCL2 3 semesters 2 No
Erika GCL2 3 semesters 2 Yes
of them? Misty GCL2 1 semester 1 No
2. How do TAs’ beliefs about teaching and learning compare Sabrina GCL2 2 semesters 3 No
to expectations?
3. How do TAs’ actual teaching behaviors align with their
supervisor’s expectations? worksheet, and observation protocols are described in detail in
the following sections.
The timeline of data collection is shown in Table 2. TAs were
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Methods recorded during two laboratory sessions. The first recording

Participants
TA participants were recruited at weekly GCL1 and GCL2 staff
meetings at the start of the spring 2018 semester. They were
provided with written documentation of their rights as research
participants and a description of the IRB-approved study. Seven
TAs volunteered to participate in the study and have been given
pseudonyms to preserve their anonymity. Of the seven TAs,
three were teaching the first semester of the General Chemistry
Laboratory sequence (GCL1) and four were teaching the second
semester of the sequence (GCL2). In all, the seven TAs
accounted for 25% of TAs teaching the GCL sequence for
the spring 2018 semester. Four of the participants were men,
and three were women. Two TAs were international students.
The TAs ranged from first-years through fourth-years in the
Department of Chemistry’s PhD program, and all but one TA
had experience teaching this course. This TA transferred from a
different university and had prior TA experience at his former
institution. The experience profile of each of the seven TAs
is summarized in Table 1.
The General Chemistry Lab Coordinator (henceforth referred to
as the Lab Coordinator), a PhD-level chemist, had been hired
specifically to lead the GCL course transformation from ‘‘cookbook’’
labs to Cooperative Chemistry labs. This study took place during
the third year of the Lab Coordinator’s tenure as leader of
the GCL courses.
Outline of study
To address the research questions, our approach was two-
pronged: (1) interviews were conducted to determine TA beliefs
(RQs 1 and 2), and (2) observations were performed to determine
TAs actual teaching behaviors (RQ 3). The interviews involved
completion of a worksheet based on the Real-Time Instructor
Observation Tool (West et al., 2013) to probe TAs’ opinions about
the teaching behaviors we characterized in the observations.
To determine how TAs’ beliefs and behaviors related to their
supervisor’s expectations, we asked the Lab Coordinator to
complete the same worksheet and provide comments about
his choices. Video recordings of the actual laboratory setting
and allowed us to identify and code the types of interactions
that occurred between the students and TAs. The interview,
(Observation 1) took place during week 7, when lab students
were finishing the project on which they would present their findings
in a formal lab report. The second recording (Observation 2)
took place during the project on which students would report
their findings in a poster presentation, weeks 11 and 13 for
GCL1 and GCL2, respectively.
The first round of interviews (Interview 1) took place
7–10 days before the second recording; thus, GCL1 TAs were
interviewed earlier than GCL2 TAs and in closer proximity to
the first classroom observation. The second round of interviews
took place after the second video recording but before the end
of the semester, at the convenience of the TAs.
Classroom observations
Collection of video data. Audio and video data of TAs were
collected using a Swivl (Swivl, n.d.) setup, with which video was
recorded via an iPad camera mounted on a Swivl robot, which
was synced to a microphone worn by the TA. The microphone
contained a tracking device that the Swivl robot rotated to
follow, such that we could acquire video of the TA as he or
she moved about the laboratory throughout the class period.
Each class period was 2 hours and 50 minutes long; however,
some videos were shorter because of departure of students
before the end of the class period.
Analysis of videos. TAs’ actions were coded using the web-
based interface of the Real-Time Instructor Observation Tool
(RIOT) (West et al., 2013). Other instructor observation protocols
considered were the Classroom Observation Protocol for Under-
graduate STEM (COPUS) (Smith et al., 2013), the Laboratory
Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (LOPUS)
(Velasco et al., 2016), the Reformed Teaching Observation
Protocol (RTOP) (Sawada et al., 2002), and the Teaching Assistant
Inquiry Observation Protocol (TA-IOP) (Miller et al., 2014). Of
these, the RTOP and TA-IOP characterize instructor behavior
over the course period as a whole, specifically probing for
behaviors predetermined as ‘‘good’’ teaching practices. Because
we wanted to characterize what TAs were doing throughout the
class period through a values-neutral lens, the RTOP and TA-IOP
were inappropriate for this goal. The COPUS characterizes
instructor behavior every two minutes throughout a class period;
however, its codable actions are relevant for lecture-style courses

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Paper
(i.e., those in which an instructor primarily engages with the
class as a whole and not with individual students or small
groups). While the LOPUS is a laboratory-based modification
of the COPUS, the nature of TA interactions with students is
characterized by the content of conversations (e.g., scientific
principles, experimental procedures), not by the relative balance
of who is contributing to the conversation. Although the content
of instructor discussions with students is important, for this
study we were interested in how the TAs interacted with students,
not what specifically was said in those interactions.
Thus, the RIOT was suitable for the present study because
it distinguishes between types of student-TA interactions by intel-
lectual contribution to the conversation (i.e., Open vs. Closed
Dialogue and Listening to Student Question—see Table 3 for
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further description of all codes in the RIOT). This tool probes
objectively observable behaviors, rather than behaviors interpreted
as inherently valuable. It also allows for characterization in real-
time rather than within the constraints of 2-minute intervals in
which an instructor could perform multiple different actions.
Finally, the RIOT was developed in the context of a transformed
course (West et al., 2013), and was adapted in a similarly struc-
tured study about TAs for a physics course (Wilcox et al., 2016),
providing precedent for its use for the purposes of this study.
The RIOT may be applied using an open-source web applica-
tion (Paul and Reid, n.d.). Via a graphical interface, the user selects
the applicable code at the start of each action, and the application
records the time in seconds between clicks. For example, if
‘‘Student Question’’ is clicked, followed by ‘‘Explaining Content’’
two minutes, the application would record that this instance of
‘‘Student Question’’ lasted for 120 seconds. One limitation of the
web application is that it allows for only a single action to be
selected at any one time. That is, if a TA was engaging in Closed
Dialogue in which they were Clarifying Instructions to a student,
only one of those codes could be selected for that timestamp.
Priority was given to the type of conversation over the content of
conversations; therefore, in the aforementioned example, Closed
Dialogue would have been coded, not Clarifying Instructions.
The actions coded with descriptions and examples of when
each code applied are provided in Table 3. This list includes all
but two actions that are present in the RIOT. ‘‘Students Talking
Serially’’ was omitted because it involves whole class discussions,
which do not occur in this laboratory setting, and ‘‘Student
Presentation’’ was omitted because presentations were not
scheduled during the laboratory sessions recorded.
Table 3 Timeline of data collection
Week # GCL1 GCL2
1 TA training TA training
3 Labs begin Labs begin
6 Spring break Spring break
7 Observation 1 Observation 1
9 Interview 1 No data collected
11 Observation 2 No data collected
12 No data collected Interview 1
13 Interview 2 Observation 2
14 No data collected Interview 2
15 Labs end Labs end
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The first author coded all 14 videos, and another researcher
coded two of them to confirm that the RIOT protocol was
applied in an understandable and replicable manner. As a
measure of inter-rater reliability, the intraclass correlation
coefficient (ICC) (Koo and Li, 2016) was used to compare the
coders’ percentage distribution of each RIOT code per video.
Using SPSS 25, the calculated ICCs (two-way mixed, single
measures, absolute agreement, 95% confidence interval) for
the initial coding attempts were 0.562 and 0.680, indicating
moderate reliability. After discussion and recoding, the calcu-
lated ICCs for the two videos were 0.931 and 0.951, indicating
excellent reliability.
Interviews and worksheet
Collection of interview and worksheet data. Interviews were
conducted individually and recorded via a digital audio recording
device. Interviews ranged from 38 to 63 minutes, where Interview
1 averaged 59 minutes and Interview 2 averaged 48 minutes. The
first interview focused on general experiences in the lab and
supports and barriers to performing TA duties. At the end of
this interview, TA expectations and buy-in were probed using a
modified version of the RIOT worksheet (Appendix 3) protocol
described by Wilcox, Yang, and Chini (Wilcox et al., 2016). Briefly,
the RIOT worksheet asked TAs to consider the relative amount of
time they should spend or actually do spend on each action
during a typical lab period. For reference, an abbreviated version
of Table 3 was provided to TAs as they filled out the worksheet;
this version of the table is provided in (Appendix 4). After TAs
filled out the RIOT worksheet, they were shown their distribution
of RIOT codes (‘‘RIOT profile’’) from the first observation video
and discussed anything that seemed interesting or surprising to
them about their RIOT profile (e.g., did their self-perceptions
align with observations?).
The second interview focused more specifically on the types
of interactions coded in the RIOT, where we discussed TAs’
responses to the RIOT worksheet. In particular, we were interested
in the comparison of TAs’ ‘‘Ideal TA’’ responses and ‘‘Course
Instructor’’ responses, ‘‘Ideal TA’’ and ‘‘Student’’ responses, ‘‘Ideal
TA’’ and ‘‘Actual TA’’ responses, and ‘‘Actual TA’’ responses and
the coded videos. The interview protocols associated with each
round of interviews are included in (Appendices 5 and 6); how-
ever, as these were semi-structured interviews, the questions may
not have been asked verbatim or in the order in which they appear
in the protocol.
Analysis of interviews and worksheet. For each activity coded
in the RIOT, the number of TAs who responded ‘‘High’’,
‘‘Medium,’’ ‘‘Low’’, or ‘‘No Time’’ was recorded. Because each
of the time bins is not well-defined, the absolute length of time
corresponding to a relatively ‘‘High’’ amount of time to one TA
could be ‘‘Medium’’ to another TA. However, in interviews,
respondents generally indicated that ‘‘Medium’’ and ‘‘High’’
represented a substantial portion of class time, but ‘‘No Time’’
and ‘‘Low’’ represented a minimal fraction of the class period.
Therefore, to assess TAs’ understanding of and buy-in to
expectations, we consolidated the ‘‘Medium/High’’ and ‘‘Low/No
Time’’ results into ‘‘Substantial’’ and ‘‘Minimal’’ bins.
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All interviews, except one, were transcribed by an external
freelance transcription service (Rev, n.d.) and proofread by
the first author for accuracy. The remaining interview was
transcribed by the first author. When analyzing the transcripts,
all excerpts related to any of the RIOT codes were first selected
for closer analysis. While most of these excerpts came from the
Interview 2, when TAs were explicitly asked to discuss their
beliefs about the RIOT codes, any spontaneous discussion of
behaviors that fit the definition of a RIOT code was included for
analysis. Next, we sorted these excerpts by which RIOT code was
the subject of the excerpt. For each RIOT code, the excerpts
were sub-grouped into two categories: those that represented
TAs’ interpretation of the Lab Coordinator’s expectations, and
those that represented their own personal ideals. These two
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Coordinator’s expectations and wanting to help students
succeed as a pervasive theme.
Results and discussion
RQ 1 and 2: What do TAs believe their teaching supervisor
expects of them? How do TAs’ beliefs about teaching and
learning compare to expectations?
TA responses to the RIOT worksheet, along with the Lab
Coordinator’s expectation of the relative amount of time TAs
should spend on each action, are shown in Table 4. TAs’
responses to ‘‘How do you think the course instructor would
like TAs to spend their time during the laboratory session?’’ are
shown under the column heading ‘‘Perceived Expectations’’,

groups of excerpts were further divided based on if the quotes
suggested support for spending a Substantial amount of time
or Minimal amount of time on the corresponding action. A
third researcher, who had prior experience studying laboratory
TAs but was not directly involved with this study, read the
interview transcripts to confirm appropriate selection and
interpretation of quotes. These groupings of excerpts allowed
us to find reasons why TAs agreed or disagreed with certain
actions, or with what they perceived to be the Lab Coordinator’s
expectations regarding an action. Commonalities among
responses allowed us to identify any emergent themes. For
example, TAs’ discussions about wanting to spend a Substantial
amount of time Explaining Content while simultaneously
considering the Lab Coordinator’s expectation that they spend
a minimal amount of time Explaining Content, led us to see
TAs feelings of tension between wanting to meet the Lab
and TAs’ responses to ‘‘How do you think is the most helpful
way for TAs to spend their time during the laboratory session?’’
are shown under the column heading ‘‘Ideal TA Actions’’.
Accurate perception of & buy-in to Lab Coordinator’s expec-
tations. To make sense of TAs’ responses to the RIOT work-
sheet, we compare what they said in the interviews to each of
the ten RIOT actions. We describe alignment of perceived
expectations to actual expectations of the Lab Coordinator as
TAs’ ‘‘understanding’’ of expectations, and ‘‘buy-in’’ refers to the
alignment of what TAs believe are ideal TA behaviors to the Lab
Coordinator’s expectations, which are shown as bold in Table 5.
Student question (SQ). All seven TAs understood and bought
into the Lab Coordinator’s expectation that they should spend a
significant amount of time listening to Student Questions, and
they seemed to see it as an important part of the TA’s role,

Table 4 RIOT codes, description of when code applied, and examples of some codes

RIOT code Definition

Lecture-like actions
Clarifying Instructions
(CI)
Explaining Content (EC)
TA talks at class about goals for the day, safety instructions, assignments that are due, etc.
TA writes and/or talks about chemistry concepts or algorithms for calculations without student input (e.g., performing
calculations on chalkboard)

Individual/small group conversation

Student Question (SQ) Student-dominated conversation: TA listens to student’s question(s) and may provide short verbal or nonverbal
responses (e.g., nodding)
Closed Dialogue (CD) TA-dominated conversation: TA tells students what to do or talks at length with little-to-no student response
Open Dialogue (OD) Balanced conversation: TA and student both contribute full sentences to dialogue.

Observation behaviors
Passive Observing (PO)
Active Observing (AO)
General observation: TA scans or paces classroom without focusing on any particular group. Ranges from occasionally
looking up from phone to slowly walking the aisles while glancing at students. Coded as default interaction when
camera did not adequately follow TA (i.e., if there was no conversation recorded but one could not see what the TA was
physically doing).
Targeted observation: TA stops at one group’s bench and observes the students’ interactions and/or individual
member’s actions. Interaction is limited to ‘‘check in’’ behavior, e.g., ‘‘How’s it going?’’ with a short response (‘‘We’re
fine’’) from student(s) before the TA moves along.

Other actions
Administrative/Class
Prep (CP)
Working on Apparatus
(WA)
Not Interacting (NI)
Includes logistical noninteractive TA responsibilities, e.g., locking/unlocking drawers, cleaning up acid/base spills or
broken glass, using the computer to request reagents, etc. A subcode under ‘‘Not interacting’’ in the RIOT.
TA physically manipulates experimental or computational equipment, e.g., adjusting a vacuum filtration setup, setting
parameters for data acquisition, acquiring solvents for students. A subcode under ‘‘Not interacting’’ in the RIOT.
TA is not doing any of the above. Typically includes when TA was out of room (e.g., left for the restroom or was in the
lab when all students were working up data or planning documents in the hallway) or talking to non-students (e.g., the
lab technician).

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Table 5 Count of TA responses to ‘‘How do you think the course instructor would like TAs to spend their time during the laboratory session?’’ (perceived
expectations) and ‘‘How do you think is the most helpful way for TAs to spend their time during the laboratory?’’ (Ideal TA Actions). Asterisk (*) represents
the actual expectation of the Lab Coordinator

Perceived expectations (# out of 7 TAs) Ideal TA actions (# out of 7 TAs)

Minimal Substantial Minimal Substantial
RIOT code None Low Med High None Low Med High
Clarifying Instructions (CI) 0 2* 3 2 0 3* 2 2
Explaining Content (EC) 0* 3 4 0 0* 0 6 1
Student Question (SQ) 0 0 2* 5 0 0 1* 6
Closed Dialogue (CD) 0 5* 2 0 0 6* 1 0
Open Dialogue (OD) 0 0 0* 7 0 0 1* 6
Passive Observing (PO) 0 0 6* 1 0 1 3* 3
Active Observing (AO) 0 1 3* 3 0 1 4* 2
Classroom prep (CP) 0 3* 1 3 0 4* 1 2
Working on Apparatus (WA) 0 4* 2 1 0 1* 3 3
Not Interacting (NI) 2* 5 0 0 1* 5 1 0
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perhaps the defining responsibility of a TA. For example, when
asked why she thinks she should spend a relatively high
amount of time listening to student questions, Sabrina said,
‘‘’Cause that’s what I’m here to do?’’ However, not all TAs had
the same perspective about why listening to students is important.
For example, Sabrina said that safety is ‘‘obviously’’ a reason,
which was echoed by Erika: ‘‘I always encourage them to ask
questions. I like it, because I’d rather them ask me questions than
do something stupid without asking me’’.
In addition to safety reasons, some of the TAs suggested that
it was their responsibility to make students feel comfortable
asking questions. For example, Erika said, ‘‘You should be
able to let them approach you with questions’’—that is, TAs
should make themselves approachable so that students will be
unafraid to ask for help. Brock made this point clear and said,
‘‘You want to be able to interact with them when they have
questions or make them feel like they can come up and ask
questions,’’ because if students feel like they can’t initiate
conversations with the TA, then they might not ask for help
when they need it. Koga believed that this happened during
his first time teaching the course and referenced a student
evaluation from the previous semester, where the comments
suggested that a group of students didn’t feel comfortable
asking him questions:
KOGA: [Listening to student questions is] actually a respect to
them, [and] it could be due to my last semester’s student evaluation.
One student . . . said that I didn’t help their team at all, and they
figured out the case mostly by themselves. . . I cannot remember if I
don’t really help any teams. It’s let me feel a little bit down, so in this
semester I make sure I at least listen to their question.
Open dialogue (OD). Another area of agreement was Open
Dialogue, where all of the TAs believed they were expected to
spend a significant amount of time engaging in balanced
conversations with students, and they bought in to the idea
that it is a helpful way to interact. This notion is succinctly
summarized by Surge, who said, ‘‘Open dialogue, I think that’s
been drilled. Ask them a question that can help them think
forward, have them talking it through themselves. I think that’s
a good way to do it.’’ TAs also seem to converge on the rationale
behind the importance of open dialogue: to guide students’
thinking in productive directions, rather than tell them what is
the ‘‘right’’ answer for a given situation. Giovanni illustrated
this in his second interview:
GIOVANNI: They need to have something to go off of. They need
to have some sort of starting point . . . I used to think, at the
beginning of this course, that you give everyone the same starting
point. But I’ve grown to think that’s not true, because you just
simply have some groups that just are at a different level than
others, whether that’s because they have one person that’s like
really knowledgeable, because whatever reason, right? . . . Now I
just sort of ask them, ‘‘Where are you guys at? What are you guys
doing?’’ Then from there, I try to give them a little bit of something
to guide them the right way.
Giovanni’s comment is particularly astute. His words
demonstrate that he has reflected upon his teaching, consid-
ered whether or not giving the same instruction was equally
helpful to all groups, and modified his approach appropriately.
While most of the TAs said that Open Dialogue involves giving
students a launching point for productive thinking, Giovanni
explicitly mentioned his strategy to figure out where a suitable
launching point might be. Given that Giovanni had not
previously taught this course—indeed, his previous lab TA
experience was in a ‘‘cookbook’’-style lab—it is especially
impressive that he came to this realization and adjusted his
teaching accordingly while still learning how each of the
projects and the course overall worked.
Passive observing (PO) and active observing (AO). Another area
in which TAs understood and bought in to expectations was
with respect to the amount of time they should spend observing
students. All but one of the TAs understood and agreed with
the expectation that they should spend a significant amount
Passive or Active Observing. Giovanni, the sole dissenter, said,
‘‘[Observing] just informs me that they’re trucking along. It
doesn’t really do anything to improve their learning experience.
So I don’t think I should spend much time doing that.’’
However, other TAs mentioned that both modes of observing
the students allowed them to monitor the class’s safety and
progress throughout the experiments. For example, Erika and

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Chemistry Education Research and Practice
Misty specified that in passive observing, they could quickly
notice if any students had removed safety goggles during
experimentation, what the students were working on, or if
students were working at all. One TA mentioned that being
able to do this without getting close to an individual group was
better because then the students wouldn’t feel like he was
‘‘hovering over their shoulder’’ because ‘‘it’s harder to do your
work when someone’s sitting right there’’ (Surge).
In contrast to Surge’s opinion, those who thought Active
Observing was an ideal behavior indicated that paying closer
attention to a particular group enabled them to better gauge
student progress, understanding, and group dynamics. For
example, Erika said that through active observing, she can
‘‘make sure they aren’t frustrated’’ and determine whether
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‘‘they [are] all working, [or] is it one person working?’’ Despite
this, she acknowledged Surge’s concern about making the
students nervous by observing them too closely: ‘‘They say
I’m intimidating, staring at them . . . I wouldn’t want my PI
[Principal Investigator] watching me all the time [so] I don’t
think they want me there all the time,’’ which is why she said
Active Observing should be done at ‘‘a medium level.’’ Indeed,
many of the TAs mentioned this concern and that they needed
to find a good balance, instead of exclusively choosing a passive
or active approach to observing.
Closed dialogue (CD). All but one of the TAs understood
and bought into the expectation that they should spend an
insignificant amount of time engaging in Closed Dialogue. For
Closed Dialogue, both Sabrina and Koga mentioned that if they
talked too much or just told students what to do, then they
might not hear or understand what the students actually need.
For example, Sabrina said, ‘‘[If] I’m so focused on getting what I
want to say out that I’m not listening to their [students’]
questions . . . I might not even be answering their question that
they did ask,’’ which is not helpful. Along the same line, Koga
said, ‘‘If I give them [students] too much order and those orders
does not meet their real case, I’m actually misleading them.’’
Alongside this comment, Koga mentioned that he should
respect the students’ ownership of their projects and said,
‘‘They [students] are the ones doing the lab, so I should listen
to them because they are trying it,’’ which cannot be accomplished
with TA-dominated dialogue.
In contrast, Erika thought the students ‘‘love’’ closed dialogue
‘‘because they would rather have me do all the hard work and
then come up with a nice answer for them to type.’’ Despite the
perceived desire of her students, she argued against closed
dialogue ‘‘because then they don’t think at all . . . I don’t think
that’s helpful for them, intellectually. They are not learning
to think.’’
Misalignments: miscommunications or a tightrope for TAs?
The TAs had mixed responses in interpreting of the Lab
Coordinator’s expectations about the remaining actions:
Clarifying Instructions, Explaining Content, Classroom Prep,
and Working on Apparatus. However, of those, Explaining
Content and Working on Apparatus had particularly striking
misalignments between the TAs’ beliefs about ideal teaching
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practices and the actual expectations of the Lab Coordinator.
These disagreements are discussed below.
Working on apparatus (WA). With respect to Working on
Apparatus, 4 of 7 of TAs understood that the Lab Coordinator
did not want them to spend a lot of time doing this. Those who
believed they were expected not to spend much time physically
helping students with experiments noted that helping on this
level would go against ‘‘the point of the class’’ (Giovanni) or
suggested that the Lab Coordinator simply thinks it would
not be necessary because he ‘‘assumes everything’s gonna run
smoothly’’ (Surge).
However, 6 of 7 TAs believed that it would be most helpful to
spend a significant amount of time with hands-on assistance
with experimental setups and techniques. Many of them stated
that this was for safety reasons; if students do some techniques
incorrectly, they might hurt themselves or others. While students
are provided with videos that demonstrate various lab techni-
ques, and the instructional team tries to minimize hazards in
our labs by using common water-soluble salts, dilute acids and
bases, or typical cooking ingredients (e.g., commercial food
dyes), TAs still worried about students’ misuse of materials.
For example, Sabrina mentioned this with respect to titrations:
SABRINA: I think it’s always important to do it the first time
they’re using something, especially with titrations, setting the
burettes up, showing them how the stopcock works. Make sure this
is perpendicular; otherwise you’re gonna have NaOH all over the
floor. . . How to actually fill the burette properly—that keeps you
safe so you’re not pouring NaOH over your head, those things.
In addition to safety, Misty, Erika, and Sabrina also cited a
need to conserve resources, that is, to avoid breaking equipment.
However, they had different opinions on how involved a TA should
be in the setup for more complicated techniques. Misty preferred
a more hands-on approach and suggested that equipment,
such as for vacuum filtration or titrations, should be set up
for students by TAs:
MISTY: It’s just easier if it is already set up, and then I just have
to show them how to do it . . . I feel like the more time I spend
working on it, the less time things are gonna end up broke [sic] . . .
These [students] are looking for an in-and-out, and they don’t care
if stuff gets broken. They don’t care if stuff is all over the place, and
that’s why I think it’d just be easier in a class like this to kind of do
it [for them].
It appears that Misty had less faith in her students than
did fellow GCL2 TAs Sabrina and Erika, who seemed more
confident in allowing students to set up these techniques after
being shown a first time:
SABRINA: I don’t think it’s the responsibility of the TA to set
things up like that every single time. I do think that because you’re
taking responsibility for the class while you’re teaching it, you need
to check and make sure they’re set up properly . . . You’re walking
around anyways; just look and make sure.
ERIKA: The next step they’re taking might be orgo, so they
should be able to know how to filter stuff properly. I want to give
them that training . . . I only do it once and then I just, ‘‘You
remember how I did it last time; why don’t you do it now?’’
Chem. Educ. Res. Pract.

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As Erika noted, it may be important to help students learn
these techniques so that they are prepared for future courses
they might take. Although most of the students who take this
course are not chemistry majors, a large fraction are life
sciences majors or pre-health students (Appendix 7), who may
need to take organic chemistry lab, as Erika suggested, where
the ability to perform common lab techniques could be helpful.
Interestingly, none of the TAs mentioned that video tutorials
of various lab techniques are provided to students in the
electronic lab notebooks, and the background information for
each project lists potentially useful techniques that students
may want to review. Given the common concern that students
could not safely perform complicated techniques, this suggests
that these TAs and students were not fully embracing all of
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the resources available to them. Was their availability not
communicated to TAs, or did TAs not encourage their students
to use them? Were the resources hard to find or difficult to
understand? Without the TAs’ discussion of the resources, we
can only speculate about why they may not have been used.
Explaining content (EC). While 4 of 7 TAs correctly inter-
preted the Lab Coordinator’s expectations about Explaining
Context, all seven TAs disagreed with the notion that they
should spend an insignificant amount of time performing this
task. In his comments, the Lab Coordinator wrote that he
‘‘equates [explaining content] to lecturing,’’ which TAs do seem
to agree that is something they should not do; however, Surge
noted that explaining can encompass more than simply lecturing
when he said, ‘‘I think the goal of the class is to take people who
don’t know a lot about chemistry and have them do chemistry, so
I think there should be a reasonable amount of some of my
scientific chemistry knowledge being used to help them, but
obviously, I’m not gonna be lecturing at the board.’’ Thus, it’s not
that TAs necessarily disagree with the Lab Coordinator, but they
interpreted what it means to ‘‘explain without student input’’
differently. In this example, the disagreement is simply a case of
miscommunication of expectations.
However, the misalignment was more often a disagreement,
rather than a miscommunication, between TAs and the Lab
Coordinator about how to best support students. A recurring theme
in the TA interviews was a tension between wanting to meet
perceived expectations and wanting to help students move forward
even after preferred teaching strategies seem insufficient. Some of
the TAs, like Giovanni, agree with the Lab Coordinator’s expecta-
tions only in an ideal situation or with the strongest students. In a
typical case, however, these TAs believe that most students need
more help understanding the task at hand than TAs believe they
are expected to give. As Erika says, sometimes the students truly put
in the effort, but ‘‘sometimes they understand what they have to do,
but they really don’t know how to put it together, so you should
spend more time on content.’’ As Giovanni says, ‘‘It’s a nice idea
that these kids should be able to produce these thoughts on their
own, but, from my experience, it’s really rarely the case that you
have a student that’s just ready to go who gets it.’’
The Lab Coordinator suggested that ‘‘proper planning’’
should eliminate the need for TAs to explain content, but Brock
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disagreed. As he said, the students ‘‘can plan it right, but if
they’re not understanding why they’re doing it, this lab style is
no better than, ‘Here’s a list of directions.’’’ In his opinion, one
can put together a viable plan to answer the questions posed by
the project, but if they don’t understand the rationale behind
the procedures, then they won’t gain anything from the planning
phase of the experiments, making it no different than a tradi-
tional ‘‘cookbook’’ lab. For example, one GCL2 project involves
standardizing a solution of NaOH, which they then use for
titrations the next week. While the students could successfully
execute these procedures in lab, three of the GCL2 TAs
mentioned that their students often did not understand why
the standardization was needed. Brock said that he realized after
the lab period, while helping students with formal lab reports,
that they did not know the purpose of these experiments: ‘‘When
they’re writing their papers, they don’t quite get the connection
between the standardization and then their [analyte] titrations. . .
[They] come in my office hours to . . . [ask], ‘Why did we need to
do this? I don’t understand how week two [standardization]
connects to week three [analyte titrations].’’’ This indicates that
students could look up how to do a standardization, write down
those steps in a planning document, and follow those instruc-
tions, but it did not help students understand how the task fit in
with the overall project.
The above example shows that explaining content may
be needed outside of the experimentation phase, e.g., when
students are planning procedures or analyzing data. As a
general rule, Sabrina said that explaining something to students
instead of trying to get them to figure it out is acceptable when
they ask about something ‘‘that’s more context and not just
procedure.’’ Still, she emphasized that it is important that
students first try on their own: ‘‘After they’ve looked something
up, if they still have a question or they’re interested in it, then
you should definitely engage. But I think that it’s their respon-
sibility to actually look these things up and use the resources
they have so that they get that skill for the future.’’
Erika and Giovanni mentioned that mathematical tasks are
often a stumbling block, such as determining amounts of
reagents to use in preparation for an experiment or performing
calculations on data to analyze results. In these situations,
Giovanni thought lecturing at the board to show the math
would be more helpful; however, he only wanted to do this if
students already figured out what type of manipulation they
wanted to do but struggled with doing the arithmetic:
GIOVANNI: [If] it’s something that we’ve already arrived at due
to a conversation, then I do go to the board because I feel like
there’s some things I can wave my hands around, and it just doesn’t
make any sense. So even if I were like, ‘‘You do this, and you carry,
and you move this over’’ . . . I might as well be speaking gibberish
to them.
Sabrina and Giovanni both indicated it was only after the
students used available resources to try to make progress
independently and after they tried to guide students in the
right direction through discussion that they would turn to
providing an explanation or worked example on the chalkboard.
However, they both mentioned that they believed the Lab
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Chemistry Education Research and Practice
Coordinator did not want them to do this. This tension between
wanting to meet the Lab Coordinator’s expectations and wanting
to help students succeed was summarized by Erika:
ERIKA: It’s [hard] because I do know what is expected of me, and
I know what I shouldn’t do, but the requirement of the student is so
different . . . It’s entirely up to [the students] to figure out, but . . .
[it’s] so hard for them. So then it’s a very difficult situation for the
TA, because you know you’re not supposed to do this [help too
much]. You know that if you don’t do it, they’re completely clueless,
so there’s this side push you always have to give. In the meantime,
you know it’s not right, so you have to restrain yourself from doing
more . . . You don’t want to get them to feel frustrated, so you
always have to struggle with the . . . situation.
RQ3: How do TAs’ actual teaching behaviors align with their
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supervisor’s expectations?
The percentage of time each TA spent on each of the ten actions
coded in the RIOT during the two recorded class periods is
shown in Fig. 1. These ‘‘RIOT Profiles’’ illustrate how each TA
distributed his or her time in the lab.
Few lecture-like actions: clarifying instructions and explaining
content. The Clarifying Instruction and Explaining Content codes
characterize time spent talking at the entire class by the TA, and
these codes took up little or no amount of time, as shown in
Fig. 1. Because of the nature of the laboratory, most TAs reserved
only about 5 minutes at the start of the class period for this.
During the remainder of the class period students worked in
small groups, so if the TA were talking about instructions or
chemistry concepts with students, it would be in a conversation
with one of the groups or individual students rather than the
whole class. Because the type of conversation was prioritized over
the content of conversations, these interactions would have been
coded as Student Question, Closed Dialogue, or Open Dialogue,
instead of Clarifying Instructions or Explaining Content.
Other actions varied by project activities: classroom prep
and working on apparatus. Classroom Prep varied based on the
activities that were being done during any particular project.
For example, during some projects, students may consume
reagents more quickly or generate more waste. This requires
the TA to take the time to request refills from the stockroom or
to put out a new waste container and properly seal the full
container. Although these tasks are not pedagogical in nature,
they are essential for labs to run smoothly, allowing students to
perform experiments as planned and in a safe manner.
TAs indicated that Working on Apparatus would also vary
from week to week based on specific experiments. Most said
they tended to provide more hands-on assistance to students if
they were performing a new technique. Because the observed
labs did not involve new techniques, this may account for the
relatively low frequency at which this was observed.
Bulk of class time: conversations and observations. Because
we are interested in the alignment of TAs’ teaching practices
with course expectations, we now focus the discussion on
actions that indicate TAs are paying attention to students: con-
versing with students—Student Question, Closed Dialogue, and
Open Dialogue—and observing students—Passive Observing and
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Active Observing. The percentage of time that TAs spent on each
action is shown in Fig. 2a–e. We will refer to the sum of these as
Attention Time, shown in Fig. 2f. For each, the average across
fourteen observations is indicated by the black dashed line. The
highlighted region spans half a standard deviation above and
below the mean. These values are summarized in Appendix 8.
Conversations: closed and open dialogue and student question.
Fig. 2a–c show the percentage of time that each TA spent in
conversation with students. The three categories were distin-
guished by who did the most talking: students more than TAs
(Student Question), TAs more than students (Closed Dialogue),
or students about equal to TAs (Open Dialogue).
Closed dialogue. Of the types of conversations coded, every-
one but Sabrina and Surge spent the least amount of time
engaged in Closed Dialogue, in agreement with their beliefs
about what they should do. When these TA-dominated con-
versations did occur, TAs explained that it was a last resort for
when students ‘‘totally give up’’ (Koga) or are ‘‘completely
clueless about everything’’ (Erika). Erika describes how this
situation typically plays out:
ERIKA: You ask the questions to prompt them, but they’re
clueless. Then you have to give them a little bit more, still clueless.
Then you go a little bit more, and ultimately, it’s like you’re the
only one talking. I have to tell them, ‘‘Guys, this is not working,’’
but I have to give them something . . . You know this is not ideal,
but you are just trying to make them talk.
Despite this, Erika, like most of the others, actually spent
little time in Closed Dialogue. Koga was the only TA who spent
a relatively high amount of time in Closed Dialogue, but this
may be a limitation of the coding scheme. Because Closed
Dialogue was coded when the TA dominated the conversation,
Koga pointed out the amount of time he spent speaking
depended upon his ability to efficiently express his thoughts
in English:
KOGA: I think I am still training how to make all the things clear
at one time, so later I’m going to be like the native TAs and just use
one sentence that explains all the things, but now so far [I] need to
use two or three or four sentences to explain the same comments.
As a first-year non-native English speaker, Koga had relatively
little experience with communicating in English. He suggested
that with practice his comments to students will be more
concise, but until then he might need to use more words until
he finds a suitable way to say what he means. Thus, we believe
that coding may be biased toward Closed Dialogue instead of
Open Dialogue when a TA has weaker English-speaking skills.
Open dialogue. TAs varied widely in the time spent engaging
in Open Dialogue with students (Fig. 2c), which is interesting
because all of the TAs believed that they should spend a relatively
high amount of time in this type of conversation. However, it is
clear that TAs’ beliefs did not always translate into practice.
Previous studies employing the RIOT showed that TAs spent, on
average, under 5% of class time in Open Dialogue with students
(West et al., 2013; Wilcox et al., 2016), whereas the TAs in this
study spent an average of B20% of class time in Open Dialogue.
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Fig. 1 RIOT profiles for each TA. In dark blue are the coded profiles for the first recording (Time 1), and in light blue are the coded profiles for the second
recording (Time 2). CI = Clarifying Instructions, EC = Explaining Content, SQ = Student Question, CD = Closed Dialogue, OD = Open Dialogue,
PO = Passive Observing, AO = Active Observing, CP = Classroom Prep, WA = Working on Apparatus, and NI = Not Interacting.

This is likely because of the nature of the courses being
compared. Our study focuses on a chemistry laboratory class,
while the earlier studies looked at physics workshop and ‘‘mini-
studio’’ classes (West et al., 2013; Wilcox et al., 2016). The RIOT
has not previously been used to characterize TA behaviors in
the chemistry laboratory, but studies using other protocols
indicate that TA conversations with students tend to occupy a
larger portion of laboratory class periods (Velasco et al., 2016;
Flaherty et al., 2017), consistent with our findings here.
Student question. For the remaining conversation code
Student Question, the average amount of time that TAs spent

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Fig. 2 Profiles of TA attention time, i.e., time spent either talking with (blue) or observing (red) students during the laboratory period. Darker colors signify
data from the first observation, and lighter colors represent data from the second observation. The average across fourteen observations is indicated by
the black dashed line. The highlighted region spans half a standard deviation above and below the mean percentage of the class time for each code.

listening to questions was only just above that for Closed
Dialogue (B13% Student Question vs. B10% Closed Dialogue),
yet nearly all of them believed that they should spent a relatively
high amount of time listening to questions and a relatively low
amount of time in closed dialogue. However, this does not
necessarily mean students’ questions were only addressed on
average B13% of the time. Because Student Question was
coded only when the student dominated the conversation, it
is possible that TAs also listened to students’ questions during
open dialogue. For example, Giovanni appears to have spent a
relatively low amount of time listening to student questions,
but he also spent the most amount of time, relative to the other

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TAs, engaging in open dialogue. Indeed, for most TAs, as their
Open Dialogue percentages increased from one observation to
the next, the Student Question percentages decreased.
Observations: passive and active observing. Fig. 2d and e show
the percentage of time that each TA spent observing students.
All but one TA spent more than twice as much time Passive
Observing than Active Observing. One reason for this may be a
limitation of the coding protocol: to warrant a code of Active
instead of Passive Observing required overt behavior of the TA
to demonstrate that they were focusing on a specific group of
students. The TA may actually have been watching or listening
to one group in particular when it appeared that they were
passively listening to the whole class, but it is not possible to
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take it. I guess I need to pay more attention to what I’m doing and
seeing if it’s the right thing at that time.
These examples suggest that TAs can become more self-
aware if they see the findings from an outside observer, which
may be useful for professional development. Giovanni learned
that his teaching practices were actually helpful and aligned
with the course philosophy much better than he expected, but
Sabrina realized she spent a disproportionate amount of time
merely observing her students, when perhaps she could have
been more productively interacting with her students.
Relating observed behaviors to beliefs about teaching.
To compare TAs’ actual behavior to their beliefs, we first
characterized the relative amounts of time each TA spent on
an action as high, medium, or low. We define ‘‘high’’ as greater

determine another’s mental focus through visual observation. than 0.5 standard deviations (SD) above the mean for that
When asked, several TAs indicated a reluctance to observe action (i.e., above the highlighted region) and ‘‘low’’ as less
the groups individually (Active Observing) because they thought than 0.5 SD below the mean (i.e., below the highlighted region),
it would make the students feel nervous to have the TA ‘‘over similar to the scheme used by Wilcox et al. (Wilcox et al., 2016).
their shoulder’’. Alternatively, the difference may simply be an Any percentage of time within 0.5 SD of the mean is classified
attempt to exert less effort. As Erika notes, teaching lab is as a ‘‘medium’’ amount of time. These cutoff values are shown
‘‘physically exhausting’’ because it involves hours of walking in Appendix 9. Using this classification scheme and the average
and talking. For some TAs, Passive Observing allows them to percentage that each TA spent per action across the two
remain in one location while still paying attention to students’ observation videos, we show each TA’s behavioral profile in
progress and safety. Table 6:
TA reflections on the RIOT profiles. TAs had an opportunity Since there were essentially two types of actions, ‘‘Conversa-
to reflect on their RIOT profiles at the end of each interview. tions’’ and ‘‘Observations’’, we combined Student Question,
Most TAs seemed unsurprised by our findings, in that the Closed Dialogue, and Open Dialogue into the ‘‘All Conversa-
distribution of time spent on each action seemed reasonable tion’’ bin. Similarly, we combined Passive Observing and Active
based on their recollection of the corresponding lab periods. Observing into the ‘‘All Observation bin. From these categories
However, two of the TAs, Giovanni and Sabrina, thought (bottom two rows of Table 6), we can see that the TAs’ teaching
the observed distribution was different than they expected. styles fall into three categories: Conversation-Heavy (a relatively
Giovanni was surprised about the relative amounts of Closed high amount of time in conversation with students but a low
and Open Dialogue that were coded. He thought he engaged in amount of time quietly observing), Observation-Heavy (a relatively
much more Closed Dialogue than Open Dialogue, although he high amount of time quietly observing students but a low amount
actually spent the highest amount of time in Open Dialogue out of time in conversations), and Balanced Conversation-Observation
of the seven TAs. When asking students questions to gauge (medium for both). Because most of the TAs’ behavior skewed
their thought process, he sometimes he felt like he was asking toward observation or conversation, this suggests that finding a
them ‘‘very patronizing questions’’ instead of guiding questions. suitable balance between talking with students and stepping back
As a fourth-year graduate student, sometimes an appropriate to observe is a challenge.
answer to his questions seemed obvious to him, and in those What causes a TA to be Observation-Heavy or Conversation-
moments, he said, ‘‘It feels like I’m literally telling them what to Heavy in their teaching? All of the TAs believed that they should
do . . . Those are the moments where I feel like I’m engaging in spend a substantial amount of time in conversation with
closed dialogue, but it might be that I’m just being too harsh on
myself.’’
Table 6 Relative amount of time TAs spent in conversing or observing
However, Sabrina was concerned by what she saw in her
actions, compared to average percent time for that action across all TA
RIOT profiles: videos. ‘‘High’’ 4 0.5 SD above mean, ‘‘Medium’’ = Within 0.5 SD of mean,
SABRINA: When you see these, it looks really bad.. . . The ‘‘Low’’ = Less than 0.5 SD below mean. All conv. = Average of conversation
student questions is a little different but the passive observing, actions (SQ + CD + OD), All obs. = Average of observation actions (PO + AO)
not interacting, it seems really bad that it trumps all the other stuff
RIOT code Giovanni Koga Surge Brock Erika Misty Sabrina
. . . It just seems like I should be doing more things, but at the same
time you do run into the situation where if I actually go over there SQ Low Low Low Med Med High Med
CD Med High Low Med Med Low Med
. . . I’m going to distract them . . . A lot of it is it feels weird. Some OD High Med Low Med Med Low Low
groups are finishing much earlier than others and so it’s kind of PO Low Low High Med Med High High
like, ‘‘Now there’s nothing to do with them.’’ And the other ones are AO Med High Med Med High Low Low
just sitting at their bench writing . . . I don’t think I’m doing a poor All conv. High High Low Med Med Low Low
job as a TA, but I don’t think I’m the best TA. I’m not sure how to All obs. Low Low High Med Med High High

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Table 7 Individual TA responses to the RIOT worksheet questions ‘‘How they received mixed messages about preferred practices in the
do you think the course instructor would like TAs to spend their time?’’ lab. Furthermore, for some of these behaviors (Explaining
(Instructor) and ‘‘How do you think is the most helpful way for TAs to spend
Content and Working on Apparatus), TAs disagreed with the
their time?’’ (Ideal TA) with respect to passive and active observing
expectations of the Lab Coordinator, and instead, they felt that
Passive observing Active observing it would be helpful if they spent more time performing these
Ideal Ideal Observed behavior actions.
TA Instructor TA Instructor TA profile Some of the disagreement stemmed from TAs’ lack of
Giovanni Med Low Low Low Conversation-heavy confidence in students, in which they believed students
Koga Med High High Med Conversation-heavy required more help than the lab coordinator expected to
Surge High High Med Med Observation-heavy
complete the lab projects. Disagreement also came from mis-
Brock Med Med Med Med Balanced
Erika Med Med Med Med Balanced understandings about how much help TAs were allowed to offer
Misty Med Med High High Observation-heavy students. For example, Giovanni mentioned that when they
Sabrina Med High High High Observation-heavy
were told not to do a specific teaching move, he saw that other
TAs thought that meant not to help students at all:
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GIOVANNI: This one TA . . . [was] like, ‘‘Well, because of [an

students, which suggests that beliefs about talking with students
did not drive their behavior. However, TAs’ views on observation
actions differed, and these views, summarized in Table 7,
seemed to be related to the observed patterns in behavior.
For all TAs but Koga, beliefs about observing aligned with
their actual time spent observing. TAs in the Observation-Heavy
category (Surge, Misty, and Sabrina) all responded ‘‘High’’
to Passive Observing, Active Observing, or both. In contrast,
the TAs in the Balanced Conversation-Observation category
(Erika and Brock), wrote ‘‘Medium’’ for all questions about
observation, and the observed behavior of Erika and Brock did
indeed correspond with their beliefs. However, for TAs in the
Conversation-Heavy category (Giovanni and Koga), the correla-
tion between their worksheet responses and observed behavior
is less clear. While Giovanni’s belief that an ideal TA should
spend a relatively low amount of time observing matched his
actions, there was no clear relationship between Koga’s beliefs
and actions.
Relative to the other TAs, Koga spent the highest amount of
time Active Observing but the least amount of time Passive
Observing, even though he responded that he should spend a
medium or high amount of time doing both levels of observation.
This suggests that there is another factor besides beliefs about
ideal TA behaviors that influence actual teaching behavior. Here
it may simply be that the ability to strike this balance comes with
experience: the two TAs in the Balanced Conversation-Observation
category (Erika and Brock) were also the most experienced of
this group.
Summary
Based on the responses to the RIOT survey and interview data,
it appears that TAs generally understood that they should spend
most of class time listening to student questions, engaging in
open dialogue with students, and observing students, and
indeed they mostly bought into the idea that these were helpful
teaching behaviors. However, for those actions the Lab Coordi-
nator expected TAs to spend a minimal amount of time doing,
responses among the TAs were inconsistent. TAs discussed
communications with the laboratory manager that supported
what they perceived his expectations to be, which suggests that
email stating what not to do], I’m not going to write anything on
the board, and I’m just going to sit here.’’ . . . That’s what they did
. . . but the people who suffered were the kids, because they had no
idea what to do . . . She [the TA] was too scared to say anything
because she didn’t want to get an email . . . saying that she was
doing something wrong.
This suggests that a case of miscommunication between TAs
and the Lab Coordinator can have a serious impact on class
instruction. It does not necessarily mean that TAs do not buy in
to the course philosophy.
In fact, classroom observations indicated that TAs spent
most of class time performing in at least some of the ways the
Lab Coordinator would prefer, that is, in conversation with or
observing students. Of the seven participating TAs, Erika and
Brock spent a substantial amount of time on both conversing
and observing (Balanced Conversation-Observation); Giovanni
and Koga spent much more time in conversations than
observing (Conversation-Heavy); and Surge, Misty, and Sabrina
spent much more time observing rather than talking with
students (Observation-Heavy). While the Conversation-Heavy
and Observation-Heavy TAs generally perceived and agreed
with the idea that they were expected to converse, the two
groups’ ideas about observation differed. By comparing the
video data to the RIOT worksheet responses, it appears that the
balance of conversation to observation was determined by TAs’
beliefs about Passive and Active Observing, i.e., the more that a
TA thought that time spent observing was expected by the Lab
Coordinator and/or was an ideal teaching behavior, the more
time they actually spent quietly observing students.
Limitations
Because the TAs who participated in this study were self-
selected—and some specifically requested to teach GCL over
any other course in the department—they may intrinsically be
more interested or motivated than those who opted not to
participate. Thus, relative to the average TA, the participants in
this study could be more likely to agree with and/or fulfill the
course expectations. We emphasize that these are the experiences
of seven individuals in a specific academic context, comprising

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only a fraction of the total TA cohort for the GCL course. Their
thoughts have provided insight into some of the challenges for
General Chemistry Laboratory TAs, but their experiences might
not be representative of the entire group of TAs at this particular
institution. Furthermore, the findings presented here are not
necessarily generalizable to other situations.
Coding TA behavior based on video data requires making
some assumptions. First, because video was captured using a
single camera, sometimes the TA was far away from the camera
or had their back turned, making it difficult to see what they
were doing or who they were talking to. This challenge was
magnified in sections where students chose to work in the
hallway just outside the laboratory to develop project plans for
the next class meeting, and TAs would follow once all groups
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finished experimentation. In these situations where the TA was
not visible, coding relied on audio data.
Finally, the types of dialogue between TAs and students were
coded, without coding for the content of those conversations.
This study focused on the behaviors of TAs and their reasoning
for their actions, but it may be relevant to know what was
most commonly discussed (e.g., procedural details, chemistry
concepts, data analysis, etc.) to understand the needs of TAs
and students. Knowledge of frequently asked questions or types
of problems could help training developers better tailor activities
to align with the realities of the classroom.
Implications for practice
To date there are still few studies concerning TA beliefs
in transformed chemistry laboratory curricula (Sandi-Urena
et al., 2011a; Wheeler et al., 2017c). Our work contributes
insight into the relationship between TA teaching practices,
TA perception of the course leader’s expectations, and TAs’
personal beliefs about teaching and learning. We found that
TAs did not interpret expectations consistently, and they
struggled with a tension between satisfying the perceived
expectations of the Lab Coordinator and teaching students in
a way that they deemed most helpful. Wheeler and co-workers
(Wheeler et al., 2015, 2017a, 2017b, 2017c, 2019) have demon-
strated the need for effective TA training in inquiry-based labs.
We reiterate this message and show here that two major areas
that should be addressed in TA preparation include (1) making
clear and explicit what the expectations are and why, and (2)
teaching TAs pedagogical methods that may best support students.
Expectations influence actions—or inaction, as Giovanni
noted about a fellow TA who did nothing to support her
students for one project because she only knew what she was
not supposed to do. Not only do TAs need to know what
expectations are, they need to understand the reasoning behind
them. For example, we saw that Misty did not know why the Lab
Coordinator suggested that they have students ‘‘struggle a
little’’ with the projects. Consequently, she relied on her past
experiences as an undergraduate to decide that lab lectures are
more helpful than letting students build their knowledge as
they grapple with the experiments.
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We saw that TAs found it difficult to help introductory
students figure out how to approach the presented scenarios
without resorting to telling them what to do or wanting to do
certain techniques for them. To address TAs’ struggles with
guiding novices in the lab, modeling helpful interactions,
as has been done for TAs at the University of Virginia
(Wheeler et al., 2015), is one practical approach to empower
TAs to facilitate student learning. Such interactions may
include scaffolding (van de Pol et al., 2010; Reiser and Tabak,
2014; Yuriev et al., 2017) or questioning (Tofade et al., 2013)
techniques that TAs can use with students. While this sort
of professional development may be offered in one-time TA
training sessions, evidence suggests that short-term training is
often ineffective (Feldon et al., 2017), and thus the ideal is to
provide ongoing support. Wheeler et al. have discussed at
length their approach to TA professional development for guided-
inquiry laboratories, which focuses on three components: theory
(on how people learn and expectancy-value theory), pedagogy, and
practical issues (logistics, consistency, and TA expectations). This
approach involves 25 hours of training at the start of the semester,
followed by weekly meetings (20–30 contact hours) throughout the
remainder of the term (Wheeler et al., 2017a; Wheeler et al., 2017c).
While the TAs in this study had B5 hours of TA training at
the start of the semester and participated in weekly meetings
(B1 hour per week) with the Lab Coordinator and fellow GCL
TAs throughout the semester, our findings indicate that we
need to use that time more effectively or allocate more time in
order to better train and support TAs.
Beyond training sessions or courses in pedagogy, mentoring
between senior and junior TAs can be an effective approach
to provide ongoing support. Previously reported training
programs for chemistry TAs (Richards-Babb et al., 2014; Lekhi
and Nussbaum, 2015) have included mentoring components,
and every participant in our study shared a specific way that
more experienced TAs helped them in or outside the classroom.
As Erika said, it is much more challenging if at first ‘‘you don’t
have a good friend, a TA to talk to.’’ Thus, it may be important
to facilitate the formation of mentoring relationships by explicitly
identifying experienced TAs that new TAs can shadow and ask for
advice or formally assigning mentor-mentee pairs.
Finally, to reduce TAs’ desire to perform new lab techniques
for students, one promising solution may be to incorporate
digital badging to foster independence with common labora-
tory skills (Hensiek et al., 2016; Hennah and Seery, 2017; Seery
et al., 2017). Badging allows students to demonstrate technical
competence by recording a video where they narrate their
actions as they perform a specific laboratory skill (e.g., pipetting).
If the student’s video is adequate, the ‘‘badge’’ for that particular
skill is awarded. These videos could assuage TAs’ fears that
students will be unable to perform the experiments that they
propose safely or efficiently.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts of interest to declare.
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Chemistry Education Research and Practice
Appendices
Appendix 1. Descriptions of projects observed in TA
classroom videos
For all projects in the Cooperative Chemistry curriculum, students
are required to write their own procedures for addressing the
problem(s) posed in a given scenario. With the aid of provided
background materials as well as the freedom to use any other
resource of their choosing (textbooks, internet sources, etc.),
each group decides what must be done to complete the project
successfully and how to divide the work effectively among group
members. The scenarios and required tasks for each project are
provided below.
GCL1 observation 1: ‘‘identification and synthesis of an
unknown ionic compound’’. Students are provided with the
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following project scenario:
Your group is working as analytical chemistry interns with the
[Institution] Office of Environmental Health and Safety (EHS). EHS
is responsible for the collection and disposal of all chemical waste
on campus.
Today, an unidentified white compound was discovered in one
of the teaching labs, and your team has been called in to assist with
the identification of the compound. Since your team is responsible
for safe disposal of the compound, you will also need to determine
as many of its physical and chemical properties as possible. EHS
does not want to mix it with other waste that could create a
potentially dangerous reaction.
As you are a team of interns, your supervisors have done some
preliminary work and determined that the compound is likely one
of the following:
NaCl KCl Na2SO4 CaCl2 MgSO4
Na2CO3 K2SO4 KNO3 Ca(NO3)2 (NH4)2CO3
NH4Cl (NH4)2SO4 CaCO3 MgCO3 CH3CO2Na
You will be given five grams (no more) of the compound; you will
not know the identity of the compound, nor will you be given any
other information about it.
Standard samples of the possible compounds along with the
normal lab reagents will be available in the lab for you to test your
hypotheses and compare with your unknown. Use the standards
carefully, cross contamination or allowing the compounds to be
exposed to air for long periods of time may cause erroneous results.
The required tasks for successful completion of this project
are shown below:
1. Identify the unknown compound.
2. Discover as many chemical and physical properties of the
compound as you can.
3. Devise two syntheses of the compound, and compare them for
cost effectiveness, safety and potential yield of compound. Your
group will then select the best for inclusion in the future work
section of your formal report.
GCL1 observation 2: ‘‘food dye spectroscopy’’ students are
provided with the following project scenario:. You work for a
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discount beverage company that produces no-brand versions of
popular sodas and fruit drinks. Your current project is to use the
seven (7) allowed Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (FD&C) food colorings
to mimic the color profile of a popular name brand beverage.
For this project you will be provided a commercial, artificially
colored beverage to analyze. Your beverage will contain more than
one FD&C food dye.
The required tasks for successful completion of this project
are shown below:
1. Experimentally determine the relationship between the color
of a compound and the wavelength of light absorbed.
2. Experimentally determine the relationship between the
amount of light absorbed and the concentration of the colored
species in solution.
3. Experimentally determine both the identity and concen-
tration of the food dyes present in the beverage.
4. Create 100 mL of a sample solution with the correct color
profile to compare side-by side with the name brand beverage.
GCL2 observation 1: ‘‘soaps and detergents’’. Students are
provided with the following project scenario:
There has been another oil pipeline accident and the local
wildlife has been covered with oil, so the local environmental
group has decided to help. This group, to save money, has decided
to make their own soap. The problem is the only recipe they have
uses lard, animal fat, to make the soap. They, being the animal
lovers that they are, would like an alternative.
It is your job to develop other types of soaps and detergents for
this environmental group to use on the birds. The environmental
group, being all for the environment, has requested that you test
the soaps, detergents, and wastes from the processes of making the
soaps and detergents for environmental impact. We have included
their recipe for making the soap, and a well-known recipe for
making detergents.
This is the second oil spill to hit the region in the past 50 years.
There are horrific tales passed down about a scummy slime that
was left on everything after the first oil spill was cleaned. Many
suspect water contaminants were the cause of the scum. Since this
is not always the case, the group thinks something in the well water
used may be a problem. They have asked your team to research to
see if you can determine the cause and find a way to prevent scum
buildup.
The required tasks for successful completion of this project
are shown below:
To make and test soaps and detergents in order to decide which
one would be best for the environmental group to use in the future.
Your specific goals:
1. Test the solubility of fats, oils, soaps, and detergents.
2. Determine and Compare the desirable properties of each soap
and detergent.
3. Examine environmental impact of the synthesis of soaps and
detergents (particularly the pH of respective waste waters)
4. Determine what is causing the scum
5. Determine the best soap/detergent and protocol for cleaning
up the oil.
GCL2 observation 2: ‘‘artificial kidney stones’’. Students are
provided with the following project scenario:
Chem. Educ. Res. Pract.

Paper
A kidney stone is a urologic disorder that is caused by the
formation of a precipitate when some soluble ions present in blood
and urine react. It is estimated that there were 2.7 million hospitals
visits and more than 600 000 emergency room visits in 2000 due to
this disease. Scientists have found evidence of kidney stones in a
7000-year-old Egyptian mummy, and it is still a problem in our
times being one of the most common disorders of the urinary tract.
In order to improve the quality of life for their patients, your
team has been assigned by The Kidney Stone Center of the Rocky
Mountains to investigate the formation of kidney stones and to
suggest ways to dissolve and prevent them.
http://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-topics/
urologic-disease/kidney-stones-in-adults/Pages/facts.aspx (Accessed
October 2015)
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The required tasks for successful completion of this project
are shown below:
1. Research the chemical composition of kidney stones. Numerous
sites on the Internet and some chemistry textbooks are valuable
sources of information.
2. Identify the major inorganic compounds present in kidney
stones.
3. Prepare artificial kidney stones in a mini-scale laboratory.
(each group member should make a different type of artificial
kidney stone)
4. Research and Experimentally test different methods of
dissolving the artificial kidney stones your group synthesized.
5. Based on the results of the experiment propose a strategy to
prevent kidney stone formation.
Appendix 2. Description of TA training at this institution
Departmental new TA training. The Department of Chem-
istry devotes one week (B9 am to B4 pm Monday to Friday) to
New Graduate Student Orientation the week before classes
begin. Approximately six hours (3  2 hour sessions) of this
orientation are devoted to TA training. This training is not
specific to any particular course because (1) new TAs are
assigned to a variety of courses, and (2) TA assignments are
not yet finalized by the time TA training sessions begin.
Broadly, the three sessions covered the following topics:
1. Personal introductions, general information about teaching
in the department (e.g., course numbers of corresponding course
names, general responsibilities of TAs), addressing concerns
about being a new TA
2. How people learn: introduction to constructivist ideas
of teaching and learning, scientific practices and core ideas
(from 3-dimensional learning), type I vs. type II thinking,
metacognition, information processing and short-term memory
3. First day guide: professionalism, introducing oneself and
contact information (email and office hours). Discussion of
how to approach common problematic situations (e.g., improper
lab attire, cheating on exams, not participating in class).
The TA training sessions for new 2017–2018 TAs were led
by General Chemistry Teaching Staff (Director of General
Chemistry, Lecturer of General Chemistry, and General Chemistry
Lab Coordinator), the first author (a postdoctoral scholar focused
on chemistry education research [CER]), and the second author
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(professor of chemistry with a focus on CER). The first session was
led by the Director of General Chemistry. The second session
was led by the second author. The third session was led by the
first author.
Of the TAs who participated in this study, two (2 – Koga and
Misty) attended these training sessions. The remaining five (5)
TAs would have participated in New Graduate Student Orientation
in previous years. The second author was involved in previous
years’ new TA training, but the first author was at a different
institution and therefore not involved.
GCL-specific TA training. The Department of Chemistry has
no dedicated time allotted for course-specific training. Instruc-
tors of Record are responsible for arranging a time to meet
with TAs assigned to their course. For GCL, this is typically
a B2 hour meeting before the first day of class. At least half
of that time is dedicated to assigning sections to TAs (three
sections per TA at 2 hours and 50 minutes per section). The
remainder of the time focuses on reviewing TA responsibilities
(grading, office hours, etc.) and navigating the online lab
notebook.
In Spring 2018 (the semester of this study), the first author
arranged three (3) additional meetings during the first week of
classes. (Lab meetings did not begin until the second week
of the semester.) These sessions were 90 minutes long and
scheduled in the early afternoon when no graduate courses
were held in the Department, in an attempt to minimize
scheduling conflicts for the TAs. Lunch was provided to encourage
attendance. Of the TAs who participated in the study, four
(4 – Giovanni, Koga, Surge, and Erika) participated in full, two
(2 – Brock and Misty) attended some of the sessions, and one
(1 – Sabrina) was unable to attend all sessions.
The three sessions consisted of the following topics and
activities:
1. Large group discussion of course philosophy (goals of
general chemistry lab for a largely non-major population),
unpacking of big goals like ‘‘critical thinking’’ and ‘‘problem
solving’’ to the Framework’s scientific practices, and relation-
ship between the activities of the lab (i.e., the project scenarios
and graded assignments) and meeting the goals of the course.
2. Large group discussion of scaffolding and questioning
techniques that may help guide student thinking in productive
directions. Small group activity in which TAs focused on one
specific project in GCL1 or GCL2. Groups consisted of a mixture
between new and experienced TAs for the course. Each group
was asked to consider the student goals for each project,
problems students typically encountered, and possible questions
to guide students to meet project goals or overcome obstacles
along the way.
3. Role-playing activity where each small group would play
the role of a ‘‘student team’’ trying to plan the experiments to
do for each project. Using the same groups as the previous
session, the group that focused on a particular project would
play the role of ‘‘TAs’’ to help the ‘‘student teams’’ with their
plans. Due to time constraints, each group play the ‘‘TA’’ role
for about 15 minutes before resuming the role of ‘‘students’’ for
a different project.
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Appendix 3. RIOT worksheet as administered to participants

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Appendix 4. RIOT codes and definitions as provided to TAs during interviews

Action Description
Clarifying Instructions Clarifying instructions, reading from lab documents
Explaining Content Explaining a concept without student input
Working on Apparatus Helping students with experimental apparatus or computers
Student Question Listening to a question from a student
Closed Dialogue TA controls conversation with student; student provides short answers
Open Dialogue No individual person controls the conversation; student responds with complete sentences and/or ideas
Passive Observing Listening briefly to group conversations
Active Observing Listening to one group but does not participate
Admin/Class Prep Cleaning, (un)locking drawers, Slacka, writing on chalkboard
Not Interacting In a different room, non-course related chatting
a
Slack is the web-chat interface used to communicate with the Lab Coordinator and stockroom staff.

Appendix 5. Protocol for interview 1
Intro. Today I want to ask you some questions about your
experiences as a gen chem lab TA in this department. I’m
looking for your honest opinions and feedback to learn what is
currently working for you, as well as what needs to be improved.
So don’t worry about tailoring your answers to what you think I
want to hear, what my PI would want to hear, or what Joe would
want to hear. I hope you’ll tell me what you think and feel about
the course and your role as a TA.
Background. 1. What year are you?
2. What courses have you taught before?
a. How many times have you taught those courses?
Experiences. 1. How is lab going?
a. What do you think went well in lab this week?
b. Can you give an example of an interchange you had with
students that you felt went particularly well? Why did it work well?
c. What did you feel did not go well in lab this week?
d. Why do you think these problems happened? How would
you modify your teaching next time to deal with or prevent this
problem?
Opinions/values. 1. When teaching lab, what do you see your
job as?

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Paper Chemistry Education Research and Practice

2. What’s hard about teaching this way, and what’s easy? Appendix 8. Mean and standard deviation of the percentage
a. Are there any materials or instructions you felt would have of time TAs spent on each conversing or observing action
better prepared you to teach this lab? ‘‘Conversing’’ actions include Student Question (SQ), Closed
3. What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of a Dialogue (CD), and Open Dialogue (OD); the sum of these
project-based lab course: values is represented by %Conv. ‘‘Observing’’ actions include
a. For you? Passive Observing (PO) and Active Observing (AO); the sum of
b. For the students? these values is represented by %Obs. The sum of all conversing
4. How would you recommend tweaking the current format? and observing actions (%Conv + %Obs) is represented by
5. Do you think that this course helps teach what students ‘‘Attention Time’’ (AT).
should be learning in a chemistry lab?
%SQ %CD %OD %PO %AO %Conv %Obs %AT
Appendix 6. Protocol for interview 2
Mean 13.0 9.8 22.5 32.8 4.0 45.3 36.8 82.1
Intro. Today I’d like to talk a little more about the videos
SD 5.2 8.2 13.7 16.1 3.8 15.4 13.8 7.8
and the worksheet you filled out last time. But first, let’s recap
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last lab:
Experience in lab.  Overall, how did this lab go?
 Do you think you did anything different during this lab Appendix 9. ‘‘High’’ and ‘‘low’’ cutoffs for each observing or
compared to the last lab that was recorded? conversing action
 (If yes) What did you do differently? Why?
RIOT worksheet.  Here is what you wrote. Does this still ‘‘High’’ represents a percentage 0.5 SD above the mean; ‘‘low’’
look about right, or would you like to make any changes? represents a percentage 0.5 SD below the mean.
Course instructor/TA. 1. High/high
a. Can you give an example of this type of interaction? %SQ %CD %OD %PO %AO %Conv %Obs %AT
b. Why do you think this type of interaction is important? High 15.6 13.9 29.4 40.8 5.9 53.0 43.7 86.0
2. Low (or no time)/high Low 10.3 5.7 15.7 24.7 2.1 37.6 29.9 78.2
a. Can you give an example of this type of interaction?
b. Why do you think this type of interaction is important?
c. Why do you think the course instructor thinks this
interaction is unimportant?
3. High/low (or no time)
Acknowledgements
a. Can you give an example of this type of interaction? The authors wish to acknowledge Dr Kinsey Bain and Dr Aishling
b. Why do you think the course instructor thinks this type of Flaherty for their assistance with analysis of video and interview data,
interaction is important? respectively. The material presented is based on work supported by
c. Why do you think this interaction is unimportant? the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (#52008102).
Students/TA. 4. Low (or no time)/high
a. Can you give an example of this type of interaction?
b. Why do you think this type of interaction is important? References
c. Why do you think students think this interaction is
unimportant? Addy T. M. and Blanchard M. R., (2010), The problem with
5. High/low (or no time) reform from the bottom up: instructional practises and
a. Can you give an example of this type of interaction? teacher beliefs of graduate teaching assistants following a
b. Why do you think students think this type of interaction is reform-minded university teacher certificate programme,
important? Int. J. Sci. Educ., 32(8), 1045–1071.
c. Why do you think this interaction is unimportant? American Chemical Society (ACS), (2012), Advancing Graduate
Education in the Chemical Sciences, Washington, DC: American
Appendix 7. Percentage (%) of students by major category Chemical Society.
Boman J. S., (2013), Graduate Student Teaching Development:
GCL1 GCL2 Evaluating the Effectiveness of Training in Relation to
Graduate Student Characteristics, Can. J. High. Educ., 43(1),
Engineering & Computer Sciences 26 11 100–114.
Life & Environmental Sciences 42 65 Carmel J. H., Herrington D. G., Posey L. A., Ward J. S., Pollock A.
Physical Sciences 2 4 M. and Cooper M. M., (2019a), Helping Students to ‘‘Do
Pre-Health & Pre-Veterinary 10 2 Science’’: Characterizing Scientific Practices in General
Mathematics & Statistics 6 10 Chemistry Laboratory Curricula, J. Chem. Educ., 96(3), 423–434.
Other & Undeclared 14 8 Carmel J. H., Herrington D. G., Posey L. A., Ward J. S., Pollock
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