Engaging chemistry teachers with inquiry/investigatory based experimental modules for undergraduate chemistry laboratory education

1 Introduction

The chemistry laboratory education is an important integral component of chemistry courses at undergraduate (UG) level globally. The work done in Chemistry Education Research (CER) over several decades has critically looked at chemistry lab education at the UG level. There is significant discussion in CER literature about the goals, aims and learning outcomes of chemistry laboratory education. Kirschner and Meester (1988) suggested student centred objectives for chemistry laboratory work should include making hypothesis and designing experiments which involve higher order skills. Carnduff and Reid (2003) suggest three broad areas, namely, practical skills, transferable skills and intellectual stimulations as the primary reasons for why the chemistry laboratory work is needed. While further elaborating a set of reasons for inclusion of laboratory work in chemistry curriculum, they also highlight that these reasons are in contradiction with the existing practices in a general chemistry lab. According to Agustian and Seery (2017), chemistry laboratory education is a distinct component of education, with the intention to teach students about how to “do science”. Seery (2020) describes chemistry laboratory as a complex learning environment as it demands integration of knowledge, skills, and attitude. He states affective domain factors such as motivation, emotions, and expectations are also important for chemistry labs (Bretz, 2019; Seery, 2020; Seery et al., 2024), and many other researchers have given broad insight into the designing, teaching/conducting, and assessing chemistry laboratory curricula at colleges and highlight that there is a need for reconsideration of the approaches about how we should incorporate laboratory work into a chemistry curriculum.

In context of chemistry lab education, one of the primary concerns that has been raised in CER literature is what kind of learning is happening in the lab. In the conventional (also termed as traditional/expository) approach, the curriculum designer defines the set of experimental tasks to be performed as part of lab courses. Often, students perform the tasks following teacher’s instructions and as prescribed in the lab manual. The outcomes are predetermined and thus, the tasks are performed more in mechanical manner. The results obtained are typically used only for comparison against the expected result which is predominantly assessed (Domin, 1999). He also indicated various benefits offered by the expository/conventional style. He explains that a large group of students can be engaged with the use of minimum resources in stipulated time of 2–3 h. The important role of this instructional style in acquiring basic experimental skills and techniques has also been acknowledged by some other researchers (Bertram et al., 2014; Burnham, 2013).

The expository style is still practiced widely when one has to cater to variation in infrastructure facilities, lab resources, diversity and number of students to be catered in the chemistry lab. However, one cannot rule out the verification mode or cookbook nature of this laboratory style. All these factors are also important in Indian context where state colleges affiliated to a given university spread across several kilometers.

CER literature indicate use of inquiry-based approaches (guided and open inquiry) as alternatives to the conventional mode (Gao et al., 2021; Rodriguez & Towns, 2018; Varadarajan & Ladage, 2022). As given by DeBoer (1991), inquiry-based teaching is inductive in nature, has an undetermined outcome and often requires students to generate their own procedure. This type of activities requires the students to formulate the problem, relate the investigation to previous work, state the purpose of the investigation, predict the result, identify the procedure, and perform the investigation (Tamir, 1977). Buck et al., (2008) nicely elaborates on the existing definitions and confusions about what constitutes inquiry in learning science in general and proposes a rubric to characterize inquiry in undergraduate laboratories. Guidelines and suggestions have been given by many authors and practitioners on how to convert traditional laboratories into an inquiry-based laboratory (Agustian & Seery, 2017; Bruck & Towns, 2009; Domin, 1999; Farrell et al., 1999; Gao et al., 2021; Rodriguez & Towns, 2018; Seery et al., 2024; Thomson & Lamie, 2022). Rodriguez and Towns (2018) makes a comparison of traditional pre/post-lab questions (acid-base titration of vinegar) and a modified version of the same for effective engagement of students in science practices. Inquiry methods do foster student engagement in science practices such as asking questions, planning, analyzing, and interpreting data, etc. (Rodriguez & Towns, 2018). Development of such experimental modules emphasize nature of science as a union of both knowledge and skills which the teacher should be aware of.

In our opinion, it is important that capacity building programmes conducted for chemistry teachers teaching at UG level need to include orientation about the work done related to chemistry lab education, discussion about alternative instructional styles proposed and their merits/demerits. These should also give concrete examples of the experimental tasks developed using some of these approaches and experiences about performing the same in the labs to understand the challenges involved. In this current article, we have tried to explain how we are making efforts to take these discussions to the chemistry teacher community and what are our experiences. We present the structure of the teacher camps, and a few examples of experiments developed and modified with elements of inquiry or pre/post-lab approach. Our camps are primarily conducted for teachers teaching chemistry at UG level in state colleges affiliated to university systems. However, before we discuss these aspects, we will discuss the chemistry lab education in the Indian context.

2 Chemistry laboratory course at UG level – Indian scenario

In India, universities are affiliated to both the central government and state governments; apart from these there are several privately owned universities. More than 100 universities offer courses in chemistry at both the undergraduate and post graduate levels (Krishnan et al., 2016). The state colleges cater to a significant fraction of students at the UG level. The dominant mode of conducting the laboratory sessions is expository style as it is economical. The lab education is often teacher centered and makes use of conventional instructional and assessment practices. Table 1 lists areas of the experimental domains covered as part of UG chemistry lab education and the number of experiments in each area^[1] as a representative example.

To the best of our knowledge, there are almost no examples of experiments which involved inquiry based/investigatory or pre/post-lab approach or those involving components of planning and designing of experiments in the Indian UG curriculum. Group work is not yet central to lab education. The lab manuals follow the expository style prescribing the aim, glassware, required list of chemicals, procedure, data tables and inferences.

For teachers teaching at UG level, it is not mandatory to have an education related degree (like bachelor’s or master’s degree in education) and thus, the exposure to pedagogical dimensions and related innovations is limited. The conventional refresher courses have their thrust on content enrichment especially in theoretical domain rather than experimental domain.

However, in last decade and half, there are significant changes in the higher education segment in Indian context. Post year 2000, the number of colleges/institutions offering UG degree courses have increased exponentially. Implementation of schemes like Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya National Mission on Teachers and Teaching (PMMMNMTT https://nmtt.gov.in/) has brought in sensitization regarding the pedagogical dimensions in higher education segment and among the chemistry (science) teachers teaching at UG level. International reputed bodies like American Chemical Society (ACS) and Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) are venturing in STEM education in India. Schemes like Star College programme initiated by Department of Biotechnology (DBT) (https://dbtindia.gov.in/star-college-programme) emphasize “improving critical thinking and encouraging ‘hands on’ experimental science at undergraduate level in basic science subjects”. College teachers are expected to engage science students at UG level with hands-on experiences in experimental domain. Additionally, autonomy is being granted to several state colleges and thus, there is scope for redesigning the chemistry (science) curriculum, especially the laboratory component.

The National Education Policy (India), 2020 which is being implemented in India emphasizes on 2 year B.Ed programme for interested students who have already completed their bachelors in a specialized subject or a 4 year integrated B.Ed. programme offered by multidisciplinary Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) offering dual Bachelor’s degree in education and a specialized subject (National Education Policy, 2020). With such training, teachers will be equipped to handle both the content and pedagogical aspects in the discipline.

Thus, currently capacity building programme for chemistry teachers teaching at UG level that cater to both content and pedagogical aspects is the need of the time. Since there is less innovation in lab education, it is important to focus our attention on this domain. As the system is becoming more open and receptive, it is important to offer programmes that will orient teachers with research based innovative disciplinary teaching-learning practices in context of chemistry lab education.

3 Workshops/camps for teachers

Workshops for teachers conducted by the chemistry group are part of the National Initiative on Undergraduate Science (NIUS) chemistry programme. NIUS programme is offered in astronomy, biology, physics along with chemistry and is one of the key impact programme of Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE),^[2] Tata Institute of Fundamental Research catering to UG phase of science education within the country.

NIUS chemistry programme conducts activities and workshops both for UG students and the chemistry teachers teaching at the UG level. The growth and evolution of NIUS chemistry programme since its inception in the year 2004 till date is reviewed and is published as comprehensive article (Das Sen & Ladage, 2023). The primary aim of the activities for students is to engage them with enriching experiences about chemistry including engaging them with inquiry based/investigatory based experimental modules.

NIUS workshops for chemistry teachers are conducted both on-campus as well as off-campus (regular college settings) and the primary aim is to orient teachers with research-based practices in the experimental domain. The duration of each workshop is generally 4–5 days and often around 20–25 teacher participants participate per workshop.

One of the primary objectives of our work was to understand the feasibility of workshops that involve hands-on engagement with experimental modules designed with alternative approaches and understand associated challenges. To the best of our knowledge, such efforts are limited in Indian context but are required. The important question was what approaches should be taken to redesign the experiments for such teacher workshops. Teachers have been conducting lab courses in conventional manner and have no exposure to alternative approaches for lab education. Our experiences in the initial workshops indicated that teachers found it difficult to handle higher levels of inquiry (e.g. problems-based learning) and often new experiments were seen as examples not meant for their own college set-up (possibly meant only for labs at HBCSE). After critical internal discussions within the HBCSE chemistry group, we decided to choose experiments from the UG college lab syllabus for redesigning and look for alternatives that involve lower levels of inquiry. It did take time for us to evolve with these ideas.

Currently, the thrust areas integral to discussion sessions in these workshops are:

1. to familiarize oneself with the alternative pedagogical approaches through hands-on engagements

2. to reflect on the design of the module to understand the learning opportunities it presents to learners

3. to discuss the assessment aspects of the experimental modules

4. to identify and reflect on the decision-making opportunities of the experimental module

5. to reflect on group/collaborative work in lab setting (teachers perform the experiments in pairs)

6. to discuss how such approaches can be adapted in conventional chemistry lab set-up

One of the major key ideas which we started discussing in these workshops is the need to conduct lab with pre-lab and post-lab components. This approach is relatively an established approach at college set ups in many countries and the rationale for the same has been explained in the CER literature (Agustian & Seery, 2017; Johnstone & Al-Shuaili, 2001; Rodriguez & Towns, 2018). CER literature indicates that pre-lab exercises when designed appropriately can provide opportunities to revisit the necessary background knowledge about the related concepts, techniques involved as part of the experiment, planning of procedure, etc. and such an engagement often improves students’ confidence and motivation. However, in Indian context, this approach is not yet widely used especially for chemistry lab courses in university affiliated state colleges. We feel that it is important that this approach needs to be implemented and thus, we have been developing modules using this approach. We selected experiments from the existing UG lab manuals or syllabus. The rationale for the same is that chemistry teachers ‘witness’ how to use such an approach for their own experiments. It is more approachable for them as they often feel challenged when asked to develop a completely new experiment.

3.3 Features of developed modules

General features of the modules developed and standardized are discussed below.

For modules with pre/post-lab components:

1. pre-lab questions are related to revisiting requisite concepts, safety aspects, making sense of some important steps of the procedure to be followed, preparing the learner towards making required observations, etc. and has elements of inquiry.

2. post-lab questions focus on data evaluation, interpretation of results and observations, drawing inferences, reflecting on errors that may have occurred, reasoning difficulties faced, etc.

In our opinion, designing the existing lab experiments using pre/post-lab approach is feasible due to academic autonomy that is being granted to different state colleges. It is not expecting teachers to radically change the experiment but introduce an important key idea from cognitive load perspective. The pre/post-lab questions of two such modules (one in organic chemistry and another in analytical chemistry) are given in Boxes 1–2 and 3–4 respectively in the Supplementary. These are primarily developed by chemistry teachers located in the university systems in collaboration with HBCSE members. The pre-lab questions (e,g. acetic acid titration, Box 3) provides opportunities to discuss relevant theoretical concepts related to the experiments. Post-lab questions 6 and 7 (Box 4) provide opportunities to correlate the change in color and its connection to changes in the structure of the indicator. Students can also test themselves (or it can be demonstrated) that addition of excess base changes the indicator colour back to colorless. These questions provide opportunities to discuss and understand macro-sub-micro connections. Generally, in conventional teaching, less opportunities are provided to build the linkages between observations at macro level and their interpretation in terms of structural changes at sub-micro levels.

For modules with investigatory approach:

This type of module is different from the pre/post lab module and often focuses on developing conceptual and procedural understanding about the domain under investigation. It has several subparts that are linked to different concepts in the given domain. Often the area chosen is relatively less investigated in the regular UG labs though the concepts may be covered in the theoretical domain. Such modules present limited flexibility to plan and/or work out procedural details to conduct a given subpart. The learner has to identify the connections between the sub-parts and make inferences related to an individual subpart as well as from all subparts together. Teachers (and students) have to review the work done and explain the purpose of the investigation, modify/alter plans if significant discrepancy is observed in the data. Such modules require careful design to obtain a fruitful outcome. It may or may not have pre-lab questions depending on the area that is selected for the design. Teachers reflect on the design of both categories of the modules after performing the experiments. This kind of experiment often provides significant opportunities to corelate observations and their interpretation to advance learning and thus, involves deeper levels of inquiry. One of the investigatory modules was exploring estimation of Ca (II) using disodium ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid spectrophotometrically in presence and absence of Mg (II) (Box 5).

This module has five different subparts as explained below.

1. Tracking colours of indicator solutions in buffer medium with different pH and overtime.

2. Is Beer- Lambert law valid for indicator solutions at pH 10?

3. Tracking colours of Indicator + metal ion/s solutions in buffer medium with different pH and over time

4. Study of indicator and Mg (II) ions at different pH

5. Does presence of Mg (II) ions interfere with estimation of Ca (II) in given solution?

Excerpts of sub-part I is given in Box 5.

Another approach which is evolving is designing experiments where the planning is to be done by the learner. They are given the aim of the experiment and a list of chemicals and glassware available to them. Here, the outcome is not known to the student or to the teacher/facilitator and requires higher order laboratory skills like critical thinking, application of concepts and problem solving for such an activity. One of the representative examples is given in the Supplementary (Box 6).

Since 2016, eleven teacher workshops have been conducted with around 200 participants. Some of the representative feedback obtained by teacher participants is given in Box 7. We also have feedback from UG students who performed such experiments to understand how they perceive such modules (refer to Box 8 in the Supplementary) The feedback given in Box 8 is for two of the modules discussed in the article. i) comparative study on nitration of dinitrobenzene by traditional method and the green route using the pre/post-lab approach and ii) investigatory project based on exploring estimation of Ca (II) using disodium ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid spectrophotometrically in presence and absence of Mg (II). The responses are for questions- a) whether the workshop changed the perception about the way the experiment was designed and performed and b) listing of two learning outcomes in the camp (experimental domain).

Box 7

Representative feedback from teacher participants

1. “It will change my perception while conducting practical sessions with undergraduate students.”

2. “By doing such camps, one can learn things by lab work and by making mistakes.”

3. “Making students do pre & post-lab will help students understand what they have to do & purpose of the experiment.”

4. “Learnt how to conduct experiments in a better way for the current batches of COVID-affected/online batch of students with less practical experiences.”

During these workshops we have observed that teachers are engaged with the experimental module at hand, and they complete the given modules in allocated time. However, they were unsure about the time management if they had to implement the pre/post-lab approach in their own colleges as the syllabus must be completed. Overall, teachers appreciated group work in lab and felt it was beneficial. We have realized that the key ideas, especially w.r.t. to designing of experiments using pre/post lab approach will require sustained interactions with teachers.

For the same reasons, we started interacting with a small group of motivated chemistry teachers (primarily located in the city of Mumbai and Pune) through an online study circle. It involves reading and discussing chemistry education research and development literature. The first theme chosen was related to chemistry lab education (https://nius.hbcse.tifr.res.in/list-of-papers/). This group of teacher participants (number = 9 and from HBCSE = 6) got interested in developing experiments using the pre/post lab approach. They chose their own lab manual experiments and started redesigning them. The development went through various phases from initial designs of questions, deliberation about the same with fellow teacher participants (and HBCSE groups members) of study circle, actual implementation of the initial versions and remodifications based on feedback and difficulties faced especially by students. After closely interacting for a period of almost a year, these experiments are now published in the form of a book.^[3]

Over years, we have evolved w.r.t. our understanding regarding the approaches that can be used to develop experiments that may be feasible in the UG laboratories in India, especially in state colleges. It has taken us time to develop such an understanding. For the same, it was important for us to conduct these workshops in authentic settings, whenever possible, to understand the difficulties and challenges involved in these settings. We also realized that teachers are more receptive when their own curricular experiments are selected for redesigning. They are more comfortable with a pre/post-lab approach as compared to investigatory approach. However, they do feel that time management is certainly an issue for them. Overall, today we are more confident that teachers can adopt pre/post-lab approaches for UG chemistry lab education.

4 Conclusions

To shift the teaching-learning practices toward those generating opportunities for learning and decision making in conventional chemistry lab courses at UG level, it is important that we introduce the teacher community to research-based approaches that are feasible in their own lab set-ups. In our opinion, the pre/post-lab approach is a meaningful possible alternative approach for the conventional chemistry lab set-ups. The investigatory approach is perhaps more suitable for presenting projects that teachers can offer in their existing set-up using the facilities available to them.

Most importantly, for adopting alternative approaches, they have to shift themselves from conventional mode of the role of teacher to that of facilitator role which is not an easy transition. The workshops have reflective sessions about the same. However, sustained exposure is needed to make such a shift. One positive outcome of our efforts is that a small group of teachers who have been interacting with us for a considerable time have transformed some of their curricular experiments using pre/post-lab approach. These experiments were field tested at developmental stages and some of these are now published in form of book (given in footnote 3).

In addition to our activities under NIUS chemistry programme, we are currently conducting workshops for chemistry faculty members in state of Maharashtra by collaborating with Maharashtra State Faculty Development Academy, an initiative of the state of Maharashtra Government. We are slowly expanding this activity, and we do go out of HBCSE to local colleges as the academic system is becoming more open and receptive. Another dimension that we are trying to integrate in these workshops is engaging teachers with some literature reading in CER. Such a step will familiarize them with key ideas/examples of alternative research-based approaches. However, we are still evolving to engage practitioners meaningfully with the same.