The periodic review of goals for a course is important for proper student learning. Reviewing course goals may also lead to curriculum changes to better align them with the needs of the current student population within a course. In this study, faculty and student opinions of the introductory chemistry laboratory at the University of Northern Colorado are compared and contrasted. Data was collected via the use of Likert-style surveys, which were informed by open-ended faculty interviews on their opinions of what students should get out of the laboratory. From these surveys, faculty and student choices were grouped into agree and disagree categories for faculty and agree, disagree, and neutral categories for students. These categories were used to ascertain overall agreement or disagreement with each statement for faculty and student data. In addition to the overall results, student data was broken down by major to analyze for potential differences. It was discovered that there are currently several areas in which faculty expectation of what should be taught in the course largely outweigh what students report learning. Based on the faculty and student results, suggestions are made for potential curriculum improvements to enhance future faculty/student coherence.

Chemistry teaching laboratories: What is the point?

249th National Meeting (2015)

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