Inquiry-based laboratories were implemented into a General Chemistry Laboratory sequence, and the impact of these exercises on students' experimental design skills was assessed using a four-part assessment developed for this study. This assessment contained a multiple-choice section, a section asking students to explain their reasoning behind a…

General chemistry II is often a challenging course for first-year STEM students, and many students rely on partial credit to achieve success in the course. However, assigning liberal partial credit to students' work can also disincentivize developing proficiency with the material. Here, we present an alternative specifications-based grading scheme…