As the COVID-19 pandemic transformed higher education, St. John’s University (New York), among all other higher education institutions, worked to incorporate methodologies that would allow for social distancing and the attainment of hands-on experience that is expected of a science laboratory course. To account for the constraints that the pandemic posed, a fully online course, as well as a hybrid course that included a combination of face-to-face experiments and online simulations were incorporated to meet the course learning objectives of General and Organic Chemistry laboratory courses. Multiple sections of each course with each modality were offered. To assess the student perception of success of the two types of courses, students were given a Meaning Learning in the Laboratory Instrument (MLLI) survey before and after taking the course to measure their pre-semester expectations and post-semester outcomes in both the cognitive (thinking) and affective (feeling) aspects of the course. While both modalities are reported as being able to successfully meet course outcomes (including techniques), some interesting differences were observed between the online and hybrid courses and the general and organic chemistry courses. For example, students in the online course experienced slightly more frustration and intimidation than their counterparts in the hybrid course.

Comparison of student perceptions of purely online to hybrid (hands on/online) laboratories at a large urban university in general and organic chemistry

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.