We investigated physics students' behavior in a second-year laboratory by analyzing transcribed audio recordings of laboratory sessions. One student group was given both a problem and procedure and asked to analyze and explain their results. Another was provided with only the problem and asked to design and execute the experiment, interpret the…

Human anatomy is a key subject area within undergraduate kinesiology programs. However, literature detailing the course structures, available resources, and teaching approaches used to deliver anatomy education in kinesiology programs is lacking. The present study sought to address this deficit by surveying instructors in Canadian university and…

Lab-based learning is an essential part of any undergraduate chemistry curriculum as it incorporates necessary and required hands-on experiential learning. However, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many students are learning from home, rendering laboratory instruction a particular challenge. Options for educators include third party virtual…

High-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) features both high resolution and high mass accuracy and is a powerful tool for the analysis and quantitation of compounds, determination of elemental compositions, and identification of unknowns. A hands-on laboratory experiment for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students to investigate HRMS is…

The instructors of four biology-related courses at a Canadian university integrated Labster virtual labs in their courses as a pre-lab activity, lecture substitute, or to provide lab experience in courses with no on-site labs. The instructors used a backward design approach to align the labs with the learning objectives of their courses and to…

The Science of Human Health is an undergraduate chemistry course for non-science majors. This course presents chemistry content following a systems thinking approach and was created with the goal of providing students with the necessary chemistry foundation to make informed decisions which will affect their own well-being and their global…

Traditional, template physics labs are often associated with student dissatisfaction and superficial applications, and are known to leave students with fragmented knowledge. An alternative known as labatorials, a conceptually driven approach to labs, has been proposed. In a number of studies, labatorials have been shown to work well. However, what…

New experiments for undergraduate students are needed to stimulate experiential learning in the laboratory while providing valuable training for future career development. Iodine deficiency remains a major public health concern that is monitored by measuring the median urinary iodide concentration of a population. In this context, we have…

The word length effect, better recall of lists of short (fewer syllables) than long (more syllables) words has been termed a benchmark effect of working memory. Despite this, experiments on the word length effect can yield quite different results depending on set size and stimulus properties. Seven experiments are reported that address these 2…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore students' perceptions to changes to the learning environment of their undergraduate physics laboratories, in which their scientific inquiry processes were stimulated. Design/methodology/approach: The activities students engaged in were redesigned to reflect a guided inquiry approach and to…

A multistep synthesis of thieno[2,3-"b"]pyridine derivatives is described that is suitable for the upper-level undergraduate organic laboratory. This experiment exposes students to various hands-on experimental techniques as well as methods of product characterization such as IR and [superscript 1]H NMR spectroscopy, and…

There are multiple reports, in the context of the time taken to read aloud, that the joint effects of stimulus quality and word frequency (a) interact when only words appear in the list but (b) are additive when nonwords are intermixed with words (O'Malley & Besner, 2008). This triple interaction has been explained in terms of the idea that…

The sequence in which problems of different concepts are studied during instruction impacts concept learning. For example, several problems of a given concept can be studied together (blocking) or several problems of different concepts can be studied together (interleaving). In the current study, we demonstrate that the 2 sequences impact concept…

Three experiments are reported that investigate the cognitive processes underlying contextual and isolated word reading. In Phase 1, undergraduate participants were exposed to 75 target words under three conditions. The participants generated 25 words from definitions, read 25 words in context and read 25 in isolation. In Phase 2, volunteers…

The majority of naturalistic reading occurs within passages. Therefore, it is important to understand how reading in context affects the division of labor between semantic and orthographic processing. However, it is difficult to compare the cognitive processes elicited by reading in context and lists because of the perceptual differences that…