Students were instructed in R programming throughout a semester of physical chemistry lab while using R Studio to process, visualize, and analyze data acquired in lab. Two weeks of lab were dedicated to general R instruction. The first of these instructional days covered the use of statistical methods which were utilized in the calculation of standard deviation, relative standard deviation, percent error, and confidence intervals in labs measuring Avogadro's number from the volume of a monomolecular film and the molar mass of a gas by the Victor Meyer method. The second day of programming instruction focused on using the ggplot and ggpmisc packages to create graphs and perform linear regression analyses on collected data in experiments ranging from the determination of molar mass by the limiting density method to the determination of the enthalpy of solution of borax. Advanced methods were then implemented in creating a liquid-solid phase diagram of a eutectic mixture and a temperature-composition diagram of an azeotropic mixture. By starting with statistical methods students learned in previous courses and building the difficulty of programming over the course of the semester, students with little previous programming experience were able to develop practical competence of a programming language with rapidly increasing usage. Programming skills are becoming increasingly important in all areas of chemistry but have not been a traditional component of the undergraduate curriculum. The work completed in this lab will help students in their transition to graduate school by preparing R scripts for future analyses and lowering the learning curve for other programming languages they encounter.

Incorporating R programming into physical chemistry laboratory

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