To demonstrate that properly designed laboratory instruction does provide affective and higher order learning benefits, an experiment was carried out in two replications. The subjects were 80 students enrolled in General Microbiology at Wallace Community College, Alabama. Students were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The…

Presents the procedures, results, and conclusions of a study to compare the effectiveness of the open-ended chemistry laboratory with the traditional laboratory. Different classes of high school students in a college-preparatory chemistry course were exposed to the two laboratory techniques. The achievement tests and the Watson-Glaser Critical…

THIS INVESTIGATION WAS DESIGNED TO COMPARE CHANGE IN CRITICAL THINKING IN GROUPS OF STUDENTS STUDYING HIGH SCHOOL BIOLOGY IN LABORATORY-CENTERED CLASSES AND IN LECTURE-DEMONSTRATION-CENTERED CLASSES. TWENTY BIOLOGY CLASSES WERE RANDOMLY SELECTED FROM THE FOUR SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLS IN THE SALT LAKE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT. TEN CLASSES WERE RANDOMLY…

This study, part of an instructional development project, explores the effects of three different representations of functional algorithms in an introductory chemistry laboratory. Intact classes were randomly assigned to a flowchart, list, or standard prose representation of the procedures (algorithms). At the completion of 11 laboratory sessions,…

Investigated was the effect of different types of laboratory reports on measured outcomes of the Chemical Education Materials Study (CHEMS) Chemistry. Compared were procedures using essay laboratory reports, mimeographed laboratory sheets prepared by the investigator and completed by the students, the laboratory manual for the course completed by…