Article

Cite This: J. Chem. Educ. 2018, 95, 259−266 pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc

Problem-Based Approach to Teaching Advanced Chemistry

Laboratories and Developing Students’ Critical Thinking Skills
Joseph G. Quattrucci*
Worcester State University, 486 Chandler Street, Worcester, Massachusetts 01602, United States
*
S Supporting Information

ABSTRACT: A new method for teaching advanced laboratories at

the undergraduate level is presented. The intent of this approach is
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to get students more engaged in the lab experience and apply critical
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thinking skills to solve problems. The structure of the lab is problem-

based and provides students with a research-like experience. Students
read the current literature, develop new experiments for the
curriculum, and then present the work in both oral and poster
format. From the instructor’s observations, it was found that students
take ownership of their experiments and typically apply themselves
more than in a traditional lab setting. Student feedback about this
approach has been overwhelmingly positive.

KEYWORDS: Upper-Division Undergraduate, Laboratory Instruction, Physical Chemistry, Interdisciplinary/Multidisciplinary,

Problem Solving/Decision Making

■ BACKGROUND
Worcester State University is a small public liberal arts school
with a student population of approximately 6500 undergraduate
and graduate students. The student body is diverse and
composed primarily of full-time students. The chemistry
department offers a bachelors degree in science and has a
typical curriculum. Several years ago we sought to provide the
chemistry majors with a more nontraditional lab experience.
While research opportunities with the 10 faculty members of
the department exist for the students, these projects are faculty
driven and may not always be of interest to some students.
There are several approaches to teaching lab as discussed by
Domin1 and Johnstone and Al-Shuaili.2 These include
expository, inquiry, discovery, and problem-based learning.
Expository (traditional) is the most widely used approach to
teaching lab. These are recipe style protocols where students
simply follow a predetermined procedure and instructions for
data analysis. They are teacher-centered leaving very little
problem solving for the student. Students simply go through
the motions without much thought or reflection about the
concepts covered in the lab. They do, however, provide the
learner with the opportunity to develop practical skills such as
using glassware, mixing solutions, and making observations, to
name a few. Lagowski states that this style of laboratory is
merely an “exercise designed to consume minimal resources
whether these be time, space, equipment, or personnel”.3 While
there are good reasons to take such an approach in certain
circumstances, the effectiveness of this style of lab has been
called into question.2,4,5 Domin5 suggested that traditional
laboratories (expository) do not facilitate higher-order
© 2018 American Chemical Society and
Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
cognitive skills. The development of problem-solving skills
and critical evaluation of the results are lacking. In an analysis of
10 general chemistry manuals, Domin found that the majority
of these manuals had students operating in the lower-order
cognitive skill set of Bloom’s6 taxonomy. While learning does
occur in traditional laboratories, inquiry (or open inquiry),
discovery (or guided inquiry), and problem-based teaching
styles can help students develop higher-order cognitive skills
and keep the learner intellectually engaged.
While there are differences between inquiry, discovery, and
problem-based laboratories, as described in the literature,1,2
these styles move toward being more student-centered, rather
than teacher-centered. Students take responsibility for their
learning, and the instructor serves as a guide. While these
approaches are more intellectually active compared to the more
passive approach of expository laboratories, they too have been
criticized, primarily for being time-consuming. Additionally, the
inquiry approaches, open and guided, have been further
criticized for their inductive approach to learning.2,3 The
criticism appears to focus on student preparedness. Namely, the
student will have difficulty discovering a concept without a
foundation of knowledge. Discovery-based learning has
received positive feedback from students in the lecture setting,
however. Works by Farrell et al.7 and Hinde and Kovac8 are a
couple of examples of discovery-based learning that have
received positive outcomes. Therefore, the method in which
Received: July 24, 2017
Revised: December 11, 2017
Published: January 19, 2018
259 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00558
J. Chem. Educ. 2018, 95, 259−266
Journal of Chemical Education
these approaches are implemented must be considered. In
recent years, more instructors have been embracing these
models, in particular, problem-based learning. Approaches
using this model have been proposed at all levels of the
curriculum from first9−12 and second year13−15 to more
advanced lectures and laboratories including, analytical/
environmental chemistry,16−21 biochemistry,22,23 and physical
chemistry.24 Problem-based learning has been used in medical
education since the 1960s. While there is some debate over the
effectiveness of this style of learning in medical education25−27
and a call for more concrete educational research28,29 on the
topic, there appears to be consensus that students are more
engaged and find the approach more rewarding. Furthermore,
recent studies in the chemistry literature suggest that putting
students in a setting of cooperative problem-based learning
does improve their problem-solving skills.30,31
With this in mind, we sought to make changes to one of our
upper-level laboratories. Although it is obvious from the
literature that the approach can be executed in an introductory
course, we felt it would be more beneficial to the student at the
advanced level. By this point, students should have developed
the necessary laboratory skills that are emphasized in traditional
laboratories at the lower level. Furthermore, they should
possess the requisite knowledge on which to build. Within this
course, they can focus on developing further their existing
knowledge, learning new content, and developing problem-
solving skills and critical thinking, the higher-order cognitive
activities desired.
In a typical problem-based lab or activity, a problem
statement is given to the students. In some cases, the problem
statement is based on real world topics to which the students
can make a connection. This is done in order to get the student
engaged and motivated. For example, Hicks and Bevsek created
a series of problem-based modules in which students learn
quantitative analysis through the pretense of cleaning up a
contaminated water source.11 Students in a problem-based
setting devise their own (usually within a group) procedure for
an experiment that attempts to answer the problem. They are
responsible for collecting and analyzing the data and
formulating a conclusion. The instructor serves as a guide
during this process.
The structure of our Physical Chemistry Lab II course was
modified to be a problem-based learning environment to
provide the students with a research-like/real-world-like
experience. The class is a two credit hour course that meets
once a week for 4 h. It is an upper-level elective lab course that
is offered every two years in the spring semester. Students
enrolling in the course must have completed Physical
Chemistry Lab I and are usually at the end of completing
their degree. Prior to the course being offered, students are
given an overview of what the course entails and what is
expected of them. This ensures that the students registering for
the course understand its format and the role of the instructor.
The students that have taken the course range in preparedness,
but are mostly the academically stronger students, with GPAs
of 3.0 or higher. Students form their own groups of two or
three based on interest. For example, students that are
concerned with environmental issues may form a group with
the intent of creating a lab that includes environmental
chemistry. Groups of four have been tried but led to one or two
of the members contributing less than the others. As stated
above, the goals of the course are to provide the students with a
“research” experience and help better prepare them for their
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future endeavors. Additionally, we want the students to
improve their ability to read and critically evaluate the scientific
literature, to be more intellectually engaged in activities that
require a higher-order thinking skill, like problem solving, to
work more independently from instructor oversight, to practice
delivering scientific presentation, and to provide them with an
opportunity to work on topics that interest them. These are in
alignment with some of the university and department learning
outcomes. In this course, there are no predetermined scientific
concepts or experimental techniques that are being taught to
the student. Each group of students determines what they want
to learn and to what extent. It is expected that each student,
despite their preparedness, expands on their current knowledge.
This is ensured by assessment throughout the semester which
includes a weekly write-up of what they have read and learned.
They are individually questioned on the material periodically. If
their responses reflect a lack of understanding, they are asked to
revisit the material to get clarification and report back to the
instructor. The groups are tasked with developing two new
experiments that can be incorporated into the required Physical
Chemistry Lab I course. The experiments should be
interdisciplinary, e.g., biophysical chemistry, or physical organic
chemistry, but can be strictly physical chemistry. This criterion
is to hopefully demonstrate the relevance of physical chemistry
with the other disciplines, something lost on a lot of students.
They are asked to make use of the available instrumentation
which includes IR, fluorimeter, GC−MS, and NMR, as well as
other commonly found instruments in an undergraduate
program. A copy of the syllabus is supplied in the Supporting
Information. Although we have applied this approach to a
physical chemistry lab, it can be used in any advanced lab.
■ METHODOLOGY
Unlike other problem-based laboratories where problem
statements are provided, students are not given a particular
problem. It is up to them to find one, centered on physical
chemistry. This allows them to find a topic that is relevant to
them, and they will be motivated to explore. Students in this lab
start by searching through the literature for a topic in alignment
with their own interests. Students in each group are reading
various articles and discussing the content from which they
devise a problem on which to work. This approach starts the
student in the process of reading and evaluating the literature. It
exposes them to numerous topic that they typically may not
see. It should be noted that these problems are not always
original. In some instances, students are trying to reproduce
previously published work. This in itself is a challenge to the
students. The material is either new to them or expands on
their current knowledge. It requires them to take what they
have learned throughout the curriculum and put it into practice.
A benefit to this approach is that it is more flexible for students
with different levels of preparedness. If a publication from
which they are considering is too difficult, they can find
something else. Often, the students end up helping each other
understand the content of the literature. This is one of the key
aspects of cooperative problem-based learning.
Because the final product is to be a lab protocol, the students
have typically used the Journal of Chemical Education, although
some groups have worked from other sources. In either case,
students must turn to other sources, additional literature, and/
or their textbooks to assist them in learning. When the students
have come up with an experiment, they must perform
background work to determine if the experiment is feasible.
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Journal of Chemical Education
Figure 1. Pictorial representation of the flow of the course. The students start by searching the literature for an experiment that interests them. They
perform background work to determine if it is feasible. They present their idea, and the class discusses the experiment and performs the data analysis.
Reaching the results typically brings them back to the literature to obtain a better understanding. With an understanding, they present their work via
a talk and poster as well as write a lab protocol.
This work includes finding the availability and cost of chemicals
and glassware, the safety of the experiment, the ability and
availability of the instruments, and a time frame in which to
complete the experiment. It is not uncommon for the students
to come up with an experiment that requires a chemical or
piece of glassware that the school does not possess. In these
circumstances, the students must put together an order,
including prices and suppliers, of all the materials needed.
They are asked to keep any purchases to around $250, although
we may allow them to spend more if money is available in the
department budget. If the experiment is dangerous or includes
toxic chemicals, they must outline a safe experimental approach.
The students need to determine if the instrument required for
the experiment can do what they require. For example, if their
study requires an NMR with the ability to vary temperatures,
they need to know if Worcester State’s is equipped to do this. If
not, is there another way to do the experiment? All of these
aspects require problem solving to some degree and compel the
students to critically evaluate how they will implement their
experiment.
Each group then puts together a presentation that outlines
the experiment, its relationship to physical chemistry, the
theory behind it, and the question they hope to answer with
their work. They provide a list of materials and safety concerns
to the class in this presentation. They discuss the concepts that
a student performing the experiment should learn. This exercise
is intended to not only give them experience with public
speaking, but also help them organize their experiments and
become familiar with its requirements. Furthermore, they are,
in essence, putting together a proposal for their work and then
defending it. This is an important aspect of the scientific
process that is often not encountered by students until graduate
school. After the completion of the presentation, a discussion
then takes place. The instructor and the students in the
audience will ask questions about the project. The students will
usually ask very practical questions about the experimental
process. We believe this is attributed to the fact that some of
the science is often new to them. However, if the students
understand the background theory of the experiment, they will
ask questions pertaining to it. The instructor probes the
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students on aspects of the experiment that may have been
overlooked. This discussion is usually an active process that
takes about 30 min. The presenting students often do a good
job defending their proposal and addressing the questions.
When they do not immediately know the answer to a question,
they usually come up with a reasonable response on the spot.
We believe this is a very valuable component of this approach.
Once the defense of the project is completed, the class is polled
in order to determine if the experiment is worth doing. The
criteria for moving the experiment forward is based on student
interest. If the majority of the students believe they would have
enjoyed performing the experiment in Physical Chemistry Lab
I, the experiment is allowed to continue. To date, all of the
proposed experiments have received favorable feedback. It
should be noted that the instructor holds veto power and uses
it in instances of excessive cost, safety concerns, or time frame
for completing the experiment in the regular lab setting.
Typically, students have discussed their selections with the
instructor prior to their presentation. This helps to avoid
wasting too much time.
When an experiment is approved, by show of hands and
feedback from the students, the groups write up their
experimental procedure. They bring their orders to the lab
technician, read the manual and learn how to operate any
instrument they are not familiar with, and execute the
experiment. After they have collected the data from the
experiment, they perform the necessary calculations to get the
results. Inevitably the students return to the literature to try and
make sense of the data analysis. This simulates a real-life
approach to problem solving and keeps the students actively
engaged intellectually. Throughout this process the students are
only provided guidance, not told what to do. They are allowed
to make mistakes and fail. They figure out what they did wrong
and try again. They experience the real-life researcher’s
frustrations and go through the trial and error process of
solving problems. An overview of the process the student go
through is illustrated in Figure 1.
One of the experiments that students chose to work from is
Thermodynamics of DNA Duplex Formation by Howard.32 This
experiment uses two complementary DNA oligomers. The first
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Journal of Chemical Education
task for the students was to find a company that could make
these. They then worked with our lab technician to get the
vendor approved by the university and place the order.
Additionally, this experiment was performed in the microscale
so they had to order cuvettes that were suitable for the
experiment. Howard points out that the melting temperature
can be determined by computing the first derivative of the
absorbance versus temperature curve using graphing software.
This required the students to find and learn how to use
software that can do this.
Another group looked at the photoreduction of benzophe-
none. In this experiment, the literature gives a well-defined
procedure.33,34 However, irradiation times are not provided.
The students performing this lab needed to come up with a
method to determine irradiation times that would lead to a 10%
reduction in benzophenone.
On the basis of work from Darensbourg and co-work-
ers,35−38 one group synthesized trans- and cis-tetracarbonylbis-
(triphenylphospine) tungsten(0) and used group theory to
predict the number of peaks that should be observed in an IR
spectra. They ran the IR to validate their prediction. This
experiment required the use of a Schlenk line that is not part of
the typical curriculum. These are several projects that have been
undertaken by the students. As stated previously, the first two
reflect the situation where the groups are reproducing
previously published work while the latter expands on work
found in the literature. Students still find reproducing
experiments challenging. Often, details are not included
because authors in a particular field expect the reader to be
familiar with the theory and techniques involved. This is often
not the case for students in which they need to learn the
prerequisite knowledge of both theory and techniques.
This is an intentionally nonstructured course. Although
deadlines are provided for the students to complete certain
tasks, they find interesting experiments at different times. A lot
of the background work leads to experiments that cannot be
performed at our institution. Students end up presenting at
different times throughout the semester. They are starting and
completing laboratories at different times throughout the
semester based on the receipt of an order and time to
complete the experiment. When there are issues with an
instrument, they are required to troubleshoot, in the presence
of the instructor, and contact technical support of the
instrument’s manufacturer. Even though students frequently
pick an experiment that has been published as a physical
chemistry experiment within the Journal of Chemical Education,
it takes them time to digest the information and fill in gaps that
may have been omitted in the original publication. They need
to determine the quantities of starting reagents that must be
prepared, amount of product they want to acquire, and the
number or frequency of data that should be collected, to name
a few issues. There are no set due dates for a lab to be
completed. We provide them expected completion dates in the
syllabus for each experiment. The only set time frame is that
both experiments, including presentations and lab protocols,
must be completed before the semester ends. Time manage-
ment becomes an important aspect of what the students are
taking away from the course. From our experience, the first
experiment typically takes them more than half the semester
with only about 6 weeks to complete the second. It takes each
group approximately 2 weeks to find an experiment on which
they would like to work. It is common for them to be searching
and reading the literature throughout the week. Their work is
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not limited to the lab period. By the third week they are
presenting an outline of the experiment and by week four
starting their experiment. The start date depends on receipt of
any materials that was ordered. As they are working on their
first experiment, it is suggested to them to be looking for a
second experiment. Students are sometimes presenting an
outline of their second experiment while they are finishing up
their first. The time each group has to complete the second
experiment is sufficient given that preliminary work, like placing
orders, can be done while they are working on their first
project. Furthermore, they are familiar with the process and
know where to look for information, which suggests that they
have acquired some important knowledge. We have considered
having them only complete one lab. However, we believe that
the second experiment forces them to be more conscientious
with time.
■
ASSESSMENT
The student’s grade is based on several factors. First is the lab
performance and effort throughout the semester. This is based
on the instructor’s observations, their weekly journals, and the
informal assessments. There was no formal rubric for this
portion of the grade. However, in the Spring 2017 semester we
ran this course again. This past offering included changes
making it slightly different than the previous offering, and
therefore, the data is not included in this article. The students
in this class were asked to create their own rubric for grading
their lab performance. The rubric they decided on is supplied in
the Supporting Information. We believe this is a good approach
to grading lab performance. They identify how they want to be
graded, and we hold them accountable to it. In addition to the
oral presentations seeking approval of an experiment, the
students pick one of their completed experiments and give an
oral presentation on it. This presentation is structured similar
to a research presentation, where they introduce the topic,
provide a purpose, procedure, data, results, and conclusions.
This requires the students to digest all of the information they
have obtained and then clearly present it to an audience.
During the presentation, questions are asked, and the student’s
ability to answer them is noted. The rubric for grading the
presentations can be found in the Supporting Information. This
rubric is based on Kalpakis which is adapted from work by
Brewer and Ebert-May.39 The students also need to create a
poster of one of their experiments. They present this at the
annual Worcester State undergraduate research symposium.
They also present it at a local American Chemical Society
poster session if one is geographically accessible. Their lab
notebooks are graded according to the rubric in the Supporting
Information. They are also required to write a lab protocol
which can be used for future students. The lab protocol should
be complete. It must include background theory, a list of
materials, a thorough procedure, and an explanation of data
analysis. We are in the process of creating a rubric for this
portion of the grade. The products produced from this lab,
forces the students to collate their knowledge and deliver it in a
concise and logical manner. They must understand it enough to
be able to answer questions and defend their conclusions.
■ INSTRUCTOR’S ROLE
In this process, the instructor’s job is to be a guide. Prior to
running any experiment, the instructor reviews the procedure
compiled by the students. As long as there are no safety
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Journal of Chemical Education
Figure 2. Anonymous survey of the 2015 Physical Chemistry Lab II class. The reported values are an average of the 14 students that reported.
concerns, the group is allowed to proceed whether the
procedure has errors or not. Questions posed by the students
are responded to with questions. These questions are meant to
guide the student in the direction of the answer or to a source
that will be helpful to them. The goal of the instructor is to get
students to learn on their own, to learn how to find and use
sources of information and extract the required material from
them. The approach is similar to other nontraditional
laboratories, the work environment, and at the graduate level.
Although it may appear that the demand on the instructor is
minimal, there is a significant time commitment. This again is
one of the concerns of nontraditional laboratories. Because this
approach is more challenging for the students, we keep an
open-door policy for them to stop by anytime for guidance.
This results in the students being in the instructor’s office on a
regular basis. When issues with instrumentation arise, the
instructor needs to be present while the students troubleshoot
the problem. Students often ask to come in on weekends,
holidays, and work nights. The instructor needs to be present
during these times. An obvious issue with this is availability of
time and class size. It would be anticipated that this approach
would be unmanageable for a large class or if the instructor has
other obligations that impact their availability. However, more
structure could be incorporated into this model, or the course
could be taught by multiple instructors to alleviate these issues.
In spite of the workload, the rewards are great. To watch a
student work through problems on their own and build their
confidence is extremely gratifying.
■
FEEDBACK FROM STUDENTS
This course has been offered three times. Each time enrollment
has increased from 5 in 2011 to 10 and 14 in 2013 and 2015,
respectively. From observations made, it was found that this
approach led to the students being far more engaged in the
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experiments. They take ownership and pride in what they are
doing. It is common to find them reading textbooks and
additional literature articles in order to make sense of the
experiment and their findings. They seek out the guidance of
faculty members with knowledge of the subject matter they are
studying. It is common to have them working nights, weekends,
and over breaks. Because some of the experiments have been
adopted by the required Physical Chemistry Lab I course, they
strive to get their experiment incorporated into this lab. As a
side note, the laboratories that have come out of Lab II and
incorporated into Lab I have been looked upon favorably by the
students. They enjoy performing these experiments and seem
more invested in them. We speculate that this results from the
fact that their peers developed the experiments and it is the
students themselves that have shaped the lab experience.
Furthermore, the frustrated student is often put at ease when
they are reminded that it was another student that developed
the experiment. There appears to be greater confidence in the
Lab I students with regards to completing the experiments.
This has been a positive outcome from the format of Lab II on
the other students in the chemistry program.
The protocols developed by the students in Lab II are not
used in Lab I. This is namely because the students in Physical
Chemistry Lab I are provided a more concisely written manual
that has often had important information removed, forcing
them to turn to the literature for answers. The lab protocol
written by the Lab II students must be completed so that an
assessment of their learning can be made.
General comments made by the students report this
approach to be beneficial and rewarding. These comments
are similar to other findings in problem-based laboratories.
They feel that it better prepares them for graduate school and
working as a member of a team, to point out a couple of
comments made from a 2015 survey. Students also report that
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Journal of Chemical Education
Figure 3. Educational Testing Services SIRII evaluations results for Category F (Course Outcomes) and the related questions. The results are
compared to the comparative mean of 3.75. The + sign indicates that the score is in the 90th percentile.40
their ability to problem solve and read the scientific literature is
improved. Some comments from this anonymous class survey
follow:
“I really liked this lab because it helped me improve problem
solving skills and working together with others, rather than
running to the professor for help every minute when
something goes wrong. I learned to make decision with
others as a group even when we all did not agree on
everything.”
“I thoroughly enjoyed this class. This is how all laboratories
(except gen chem lab) should be. For two credits it was a lot
of work, but I think this experience will help me greatly in
grad school...”
“This is a great learning course as it maximizes all the
learning you acquire throughout the undergraduate career
and apply it in one course...”
“The most beneficial class I’ve taken by far”
In 2015, the students were also asked to respond to a series
of question with a score of 1 to 5; 1 being very little and 5 being
very much. These questions and the average of the responses
are shown in Figure 2.
The majority of these scores are well over 4.00 with only two
questions yielding an average of just under 4.00. These two
questions correspond to teamwork. It happened that in this
year there were a couple of groups of students that did not
work well together. These groups were not broken up as these
types of situations come up in graduate school and industry so
students should be prepared for them. Overall, however, the
scores are quite high, >4/5. In essence the students feel that
their problem-solving skills have increased, their ability to work
with less instructor input has increased, and they feel better
prepared to enter graduate school or the workforce. They also
prefer this style of lab to the traditional lab style.
The standard SIRII evaluations also showed that students
look positively on this course. In particular, Category F which
deals with course outcomes shows an average value greater than
the comparative mean. The first time the course was offered
there were only 5 students registered, so no SIRII evaluations
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were completed. However, SIRII evaluations from the
subsequent offering showed an overall better than average
result with a score of 4.74+ and 4.60+ compared to the
comparative mean of 3.75 for 2015 and 2013, respectively,
where the + following the value indicates that the score is in the
90th percentile.40 Furthermore, all of the questions within this
category also show reported values greater than the
comparative mean. The results are shown in Figure 3.
Several of the questions are worth highlighting. First, the
results with regards to the first question, “My learning has
increased in this course” are 4.77+ and 4.50 for 2015 and 2013,
respectively. It is apparent that the students feel they are
learning from this style of class. The third category within
Question F pertains to interest in the subject matter, “My
interest in the subject area has increased”. The values reported
for 2015 and 2013 are 4.54 and 4.60, respectively. This is
important. As a teacher, we want our students’ interest to
increase. We hope that students will leave our classes with a
desire to further their education in the topic. The last category
in this question which deals with student engagement, “This
course actively involved me in what I was learning”, reports a
4.83+ and 4.80+. The students feel that they are actively
engaged in their learning.
Our Physical Chemistry Lab I is a more traditional lab which
is taught by the same instructor as Physical Chemistry Lab II.
Furthermore, the students in the elective class would have
taken the required lab the previous semester. Although the
students taking Lab II are self-selecting, this class does include
students with different levels of preparedness, even though a lot
of them are stronger students. This makes for a reasonably
good (closest) comparison between the traditional and
nontraditional laboratories. When comparing the SIRII
Category F questions for the same academic years as those
presented here for Physical Chemistry Lab II, we see that the
new approach scores higher than the traditional approach. The
2014/15 academic year scores are 4.23 and 4.74+ for Lab I and
Lab II, respectively, and for the 2012/13 academic year, they
are 3.92 and 4.40+. First, we see a notable increase in scores for
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Physical Chemistry Lab I from 2012 to 2014. We believe this is
due to the fact that we have shifted the required lab to reflect
more of the aspects of the elective course. We have removed
the procedures from some of the lab protocols and provided
them with the relevant literature papers. This could, however,
just be the class. More data is needed to be conclusive. Both of
the scores for the Lab II course are in the 90% while the scores
for Lab I are in the 80th and 60th percentile for 2014 and 2012
years, respectively. From this data, the student survey, as well as
general feedback from the student, we feel that the students are
getting a more fulfilling experience that is keeping them
engaged. They work with less instructor oversight and refine
their problem-solving skills.
■ DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
A problem-based approach to teaching an advanced chemistry
lab has been presented. In this model, students are exposed to a
realistic scientific setting. They select a problem that is
interesting to them, increasing their motivation for study.
The lab is not content driven. That is, there is no intent to
teach a particular topic or experimental technique. At the
advanced level, students should have acquired the fundamen-
tals. This lab allows them to refine and build on what they have
learned as well as develop crucial problem-solving skills.
Furthermore, they are developing their ability to teach
themselves. They can explore and study topics that they may
not have been exposed to in other courses within the program.
They learn this material through self-exploration and group
discussions. The instructor serves only as a guide. This
approach forces the student to use the current scientific
literature to learn. They actively read from multiple journal
articles and sometimes textbooks to help them understand a
topic. They work from these resources to create experiments
and analyze the data. Additionally, this approach introduces
them to developing a proposal and defending it. Although it is
not a true proposal, it is a good experience for the student.
They also are exposed to the necessity of ordering appropriate
chemicals and glassware, and learn how to operate unfamiliar
instruments. These are important aspects not typically
introduced at the undergraduate level. It is difficult to measure
exactly how much they take away using this process, and if their
problem-solving skills improve; however, it appears to be
effective. To what extent it is effective, we cannot conclude
currently. The lab protocols provide us some insight into their
acquisition of knowledge. The ability to write a lab protocol
that effectively explains the background theory, a clear
procedure, and a method to perform the data analysis
demonstrates, to some level, the ability to synthesize the
material. A majority of our students have done a good job at
this. Their grades typically range between A and B. Before
trying to draw conclusions from the protocols, however, a
carefully thought out rubric should be created and provided to
the students. This will provide more structure to our
expectations from which the students can work. Their ability
to present their work in an oral format where they must answer
question also gives us an indication of their ability to learn with
little guidance. The students have typically done well in this
regard (A/B). Although they may not be able to answer every
question put to them correctly, they generally try to formulate a
reasonable response based on what they know rather than
simply replying “I don’t know”. They are essentially problem
solving on the spot, which is an outcome that we consider
positive.
265
Article
From the feedback to date, this approach is looked upon
favorably from students. They take ownership of the
laboratories they are performing and are more engaged than
in traditional laboratories. They improve their problem-solving
skills and ability to read the scientific literature. Furthermore,
their confidence in their ability to work with minimal instructor
input is increased. These are the outcomes we desired from a
problem-based approach. These results are anecdotal, however,
based on observations and students’ self-reporting through
anonymous surveys and SIRII evaluations. Other work, see
Tan31 for example, reports similar findings. A more substantive
analysis would incorporate formal measurements of the
outcomes. For example, once a group has decided on a topic
of study, we would write a series of questions on this topic.
They will each take the exam/quiz before they start their
experiment and then again after. This will help us quantitatively
determine to what extent they learned the material. Another
assessment might include writing an open-ended question
where they are asked how to solve a research-based question
where an experiment must be designed. Again, this question
would be asked of each student at the beginning and end of the
course. This may provide a better assessment of improvement
in problem-solving skills. These are two assessment methods
we are considering for the future. More work on our part needs
to done, however, to explore methods of assessment.
This has been applied to a physical chemistry laboratory;
however, the approach could be taken in other advanced
laboratory settings. In fact, we will be transitioning this into an
interdisciplinary lab which will be taught by multiple
instructors. This was tried in the Spring 2017 semester where
the focus was on physical and inorganic chemistry.
Furthermore, students were not allowed to simply reproduce
an experiment. At a minimum, they needed to add an additional
component to what has been previously published. Student
feedback was again positive. In the future, students will work on
projects that do not necessarily include physical chemistry
topics. For example, the lab may be focused on organic and
green chemistry in 2019. The course will be co-taught by
faculty with expertise in the subject matter being emphasized.
From future offerings of this course, more data needs to be
collected to ensure that students are still obtaining the goals of
this lab structure. However, in its current format it appeals to
the students. They enjoy learning in the problem-based setting
and appear to have an increase motivation toward scientific
research.
■
ASSOCIATED CONTENT
*
S Supporting Information
The Supporting Information is available on the ACS
Publications website at DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00558.
Sample syllabus (PDF)
Rubric for grading oral presentation (PDF)
Rubric for grading lab notebooks (PDF)
Rubric for grading lab performance (PDF)
■
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail: jquattrucci@worcester.edu.
ORCID
Joseph G. Quattrucci: 0000-0001-7363-7625
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00558
J. Chem. Educ. 2018, 95, 259−266
Journal of Chemical Education
Notes
The author declares no competing financial interest.
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00558
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