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  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 2007  > August  >
Research: Science and Education
Chemical Education Research
Using the Science Writing Heuristic in the General Chemistry Laboratory To Improve Students' Academic Performance
Jason R. Poock
Marshalltown Community College, Marshalltown, IA 50158

K. A. Burke
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Iowa State University of Science and Technology, Ames, IA 50011-3111

Thomas J. Greenbowe
Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University of Science and Technology, Ames, IA 50011-3111

Brian M. Hand
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242

Cover
August 2007
Vol. 84 No. 8
p. 1371
Abstract
A two-semester longitudinal study investigated the effects of a laboratory instructional strategy—the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH)—on improving student academic performance in the lecture portion of the course. The SWH approach helps students do inquiry science laboratory work by structuring the laboratory notebook in a format that guides students to answer directed questions instead of using a traditional laboratory report. In this approach, students must make a claim (inference) about what was learned through the laboratory experiment and provide evidence to support that claim. Then, through reflection, students continue to negotiate meaning from the experiment(s) they conducted. Successfully implementing the SWH requires a student-centered learning environment. In this study, the instructors were rated on how well they implemented the SWH approach and inquiry. The hypothesis under investigation was that the more proficiently an instructor engages students to do collaborative inquiry and the SWH approach, the more effectively students learn. The results of this study indicate that students whose laboratory instructor proficiently implements the SWH approach earn more total points in the lecture portion of the course compared to students who have a laboratory instructor who does not fully implement the SWH approach. The data also show that the SWH approach helps students entering the course with low chemistry content knowledge to succeed in the course compared to students who were not taught using the SWH approach.
Supplement
A data table for the years when the SWH approach was not used (1997–1999) is available.
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Citation
Poock, Jason R.; Burke, K. A.; Greenbowe, Thomas J.; Hand, Brian M. J. Chem. Educ. 2007, 84, 1371.
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Keywords
Chemical Education Research; Collaborative / Cooperative Learning; Communication / Writing; Constructivism; First-Year Undergraduate / General; General Public; High School / Introductory Chemistry; Inquiry-Based / Discovery Learning; Laboratory Instruction; Learning Theories; Professional Development; TA Training / Orientation
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History
Created:
Last Updated:
6/22/2007
7/6/2007
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