The ability to effectively communicate science is a skill sought after by graduate and professional schools as well as by employers in science-related fields. Are content-heavy undergraduate science curricula able to incorporate opportunities to develop science communication skills, and is promoting these skills worth the time and effort? The…

Using a cooperative learning framework in a quantitative reasoning laboratory course, students were assigned to static teams of four in which they adopted roles that rotated regularly. The roles included: team leader, protocol manager, data recorder, and researcher. Using a mixed-methods approach, we investigated students' perceptions of the team…

Throughout countries such as Ireland, the U.K., and Australia, graduate students who fulfill teaching roles in the undergraduate laboratory are often referred to as "laboratory demonstrators". The laboratory demonstrator (LD) model of graduate teaching is similar to the more commonly known graduate teaching assistant (GTA) model that is…

There is wide consensus among educators that participation in authentic research is valuable for undergraduate science students, and incorporating research into large-enrollment courses is one way to provide that opportunity to many students. There is substantial variation in the documented impacts, however, particularly between males and females.…

It is essential that physics undergraduates are appropriately prepared for the mathematical demands of their course. This study investigated physics students' perceptions of post-compulsory mathematics as preparation for their degree course. 494 physics undergraduates responded to an online questionnaire about their experiences of A-level…

Pedagogical practitioners who emphasise active learning in undergraduate chemistry courses widely use the Student Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG) instrument to measure students' perceptions of their gains in knowledge and skills in chemistry. Although numerous studies have reported SALG results in support of successful pedagogical…

Much research has identified organic chemistry as an area of difficulty for learners. There is also much literature pertaining to the factors that contribute to learners' difficulties. This paper explores the intersections of teachers' and learners' perceptions of teaching and learning organic chemistry respectively. Understanding these nuances…

A central goal of nonmajors chemistry courses is to instill within students the sense that chemistry does not occur in a vacuum but rather permeates everyday life. To encourage students to consider chemistry within the broader context of society and public policy, a week-long module in a survey course for nonmajors was designed to connect…

Academic programs generally work to make their laboratory curriculum both as instrumentation rich and up to date as possible. However, little is known about the relationship between the use of instrumentation in the curriculum and student learning. As part of our department's ongoing assessment efforts, a project was designed to probe this…

We have developed a semester-long laboratory project for an undergraduate immunology course in which students study multiple aspects of macrophage biology including differentiation from progenitors in the bone marrow, activation upon stimulation with microbial ligands, expression of cell surface markers, and modulation of cytokine production. In…

A laboratory experiment is described in which students synthesize a variety of cationic gemini surfactants and analyze their efficacy as fabric softeners. Students perform a simple organic synthesis reaction and two analytical tests (one qualitative and one quantitative), and use the class data to assess the synthesized products. The experiment…

Quantitative literacy is essential to biological literacy (and is one of the core concepts in "Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action"; AAAS 2009). Building quantitative literacy is a challenging endeavor for biology instructors. Integrating mathematical skills into biological investigations can help build…

Fundamentally concerned with motivation, self-determination theory (SDT) represents a framework of several mini-theories to explore how social context interacts with people's motivational types categorized by degree of regulation internalization. This paper aims to modify an existing theory-based instrument (Academic Motivation Scale, or AMS) and…

Graduate students who fulfill teaching roles in the undergraduate laboratory play an important role in establishing a positive learning environment. A host of various graduate teacher training programmes have been developed, implemented and evaluated accordingly in order to enhance their teaching capability. In addition research has also…

Research on learning in the undergraduate chemistry laboratory necessitates an understanding of students' perspectives of learning. Novak's Theory of Meaningful Learning states that the cognitive (thinking), affective (feeling), and psychomotor (doing) domains must be integrated for meaningful learning to occur. The psychomotor domain is the…