Student struggles in undergraduate chemistry laboratories have been widely studied. Disconnects between professor and student goals, failure to achieve student autonomy, and disparities between lab activities and lecture concepts have been demonstrated as reasons why undergraduate chemistry labs fall short of meeting intended learning objectives. However, creating an intentional environment where students face obstacles and setbacks may engender an enduring sense of research resilience and lead to higher levels of conceptual connections. Mathematics education researchers have shown that “productive struggle” results in longer retention of information in students as well as increased success when applying concepts to novel contexts. Furthermore, some researchers suggest productive struggle as a promising method for fostering the development of the resilience and perseverance students need to succeed in the 4th industrial revolution. This study explores how student struggles in chemistry lab activities manifest and the ways in which these struggles may be productive toward meeting laboratory learning goals. Video and audio recordings were collected from a range of general chemistry laboratory activities and analyzed for levels of student struggle, teacher and peer interactions, task structure, and group dynamics using discourse analysis. These results are interpreted through an activity theory framework. The preliminary findings from these data include characterizations of student struggle and levels of productivity. Applications of this work are proposed for fostering productive struggle in undergraduate general chemistry labs.

Embracing student challenges in general chemistry lab activities

2019 Spring National Meeting

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