Resumen de Measuring Meaningful Learning in the Undergraduate General Chemistry and Organic Chemistry Laboratories: A Longitudinal Study
Kelli R. Galloway, Stacey Lowery Bretz
Understanding how students learn in the undergraduate chemistry teaching laboratory is an essential component to developing evidence-based laboratory curricula. The Meaningful Learning in the Laboratory Instrument (MLLI) was developed to measure students’ cognitive and affective expectations and experiences for learning in the chemistry laboratory. Previous cross-sectional studies in both general and organic chemistry laboratory courses have shown trends where cognitive expectations go unfulfilled, and affective expectations and experiences are diverse among all students. On the basis of these previous findings, a longitudinal study was carried out to explore how students’ ideas about laboratory learning change over two years of chemistry laboratory instruction. The data were analyzed using multiple visualizations, inferential statistics, and cluster analysis. Findings from this study supported previous findings from the cross-sectional studies. In addition, it was found that students “reset” their expectations for organic chemistry laboratory, meaning they indicated high expectations for learning despite unfulfilled expectations in their general chemistry laboratory. Further findings and their implications are discussed within the context of Novak’s theory of meaningful learning.
