Large introductory STEM courses and their laboratory components are often seen as hurdles to overcome instead of valuable learning experiences. One reason for this is the emphasis on specific laboratory skills instead of experimental design, data analysis, and other transferable skills. While this can help students achieve basic technical proficiency, it does little to develop their self efficacy and science identity, which are key determinants of persistence in STEM career paths. The reputations of these classes are especially impactful for students who have a lower sense of belonging in STEM and self efficacy compared to their peers, as is common for students who identify as from historically underrepresented groups (HUG) or first generation college students (FGCS).<br/>In Fall 2020, we redesigned the laboratory curriculum for a remote organic chemistry course to be more research-based and focus on transferable skills, including experimental design, data analysis and scientific communication. Students evaluated reaction progress based on different types of real and complex data, and integrated their learning in the form of a presentation. Using survey responses, we found that this course bridged the perception gap between HUG and FGCS students and their peers in terms of self efficacy and science identity, even in a remote semester.<br/>In the Fall of 2021, we deployed our revised research-based curriculum for in-person instruction and assessed its effectiveness based on survey data, student feedback, and performance on assessments. In this course, students worked in small groups to optimize an epoxidation reaction in terms of its greenness and % yield. They were able to apply their new skills in spectroscopy and integrate what they had learned in lecture to design, conduct, and evaluate their own experiments.<br/>While we used a specific system and techniques in our course, the general format is adaptable to different chemical reactions and types of institutions. The emphasis of our course was on transferable scientific skills, not specific reactions or laboratory techniques, which were only used as vehicles to develop students’ experimental design, data analysis, and scientific communication skills. Providing students with a structured research experience that focuses on transferable skills early in their STEM education prepares them for STEM careers and improves their sense of belonging in the STEM community.

Closing the perception gap between students from underrepresented groups and their counterparts with a research-based organic chemistry laboratory course

ACS Spring 2022

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