The COVID-19 outbreak has altered chemistry laboratory instruction and forced us to reconsider the balance between face-to-face and online teaching. Our students preferred face-to-face teaching (score 4.1/5 on a Likert-like scale) to virtual laboratory exercises (3.4/5) despite the fact that their performance score was actually lower in…

The laboratory has occupied an important place in the general chemistry curriculum for well over a century, despite the fact that many have voiced concern about its value and utility. In an effort to potentially increase capacity in our general chemistry courses, we developed and implemented a hybrid laboratory curriculum that consisted of…

Reports on a study designed to determine the relative effectiveness of different instructional approaches on chemistry laboratory achievement. Investigated differences in achievement in spectrophotometry among college freshmen who received either traditional, learning cycle, or computer simulation instruction. Results indicated that students…