Internet-Based Prelaboratory Tutorials and Computer-Based Probes in General Chemistry

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-1-2003

Publication Title

Journal of Chemical Education

DOI

10.1021/ed080p606

ISSN

1938-1328

Abstract

A strong desire to upgrade the general chemistry laboratory program at Georgia Southern University (GSU) through greater use of more modern laboratory techniques led to an NSF-DUE grant (0088586) to purchase computers and interfaced analytical probes. Included in the project was a complete restructuring of many of the traditional laboratory experiments to utilize the new equipment and also the development of Web-based laboratory tutorials to better prepare students for the experiments and to ease the transition into use of the new technology. Immediate improvements could be seen with the addition of computers for data acquisition, spreadsheets for data analysis, and molecular modeling software. Furthermore, the use of the Web-based tutorials served to familiarize the students with the equipment and techniques involved in the experiment, reducing the anxiety associated with using previously unseen equipment and allowing students to begin with a greater degree of confidence. This has been very important for those students with limited prior chemistry experience and was instrumental in helping students adapt to the new computer-based equipment. A particularly beneficial result of the computers and tutorials has been the savings in laboratory time, which has allowed experiments to be expanded to explore conceptual understandings and related applications.

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