Mark A. Buntine

Development, Evaluation and Use of a Student Experience Survey in Undergraduate Science Laboratories: The Advancing Science by Enhancing Learning in the Laboratory Student Laboratory Learning Experience Survey.

Student experience surveys have become increasingly popular to probe various aspects of processes and outcomes in higher education, such as measuring student perceptions of the learning environment and identifying aspects that could be improved. This paper reports on a particular survey for evaluating individual experiments that has been developed over some 15 years as part of a large national Australian study pertaining to the area of undergraduate laboratories—Advancing Science by Enhancing Learning in the Laboratory. This paper reports on the development of the survey instrument and the evaluation of the survey using student responses to experiments from different institutions in Australia, New Zealand and the USA. A total of 3153 student responses have been analysed using factor analysis. Three factors, motivation, assessment and resources, have been identified as contributing to improved student attitudes to laboratory activities. A central focus of the survey is to provide feedback to practitioners to iteratively improve experiments. Implications for practitioners and researchers are also discussed.

A disconnect between staff and student perceptions of learning: an ACELL educational analysis of the first year undergraduate chemistry experiment ‘investigating sugar using a home made polarimeter’

This paper describes an educational analysis of a first year university chemistry practical called ‘Investigating sugar using a home made polarimeter’. The analysis follows the formalism of the Advancing Chemistry by Enhancing Learning in the Laboratory (ACELL) project, which includes a statement of education objectives, and an analysis of the student learning experience. The practical requires students to accurately prepare solutions of known concentrations of a common consumer chemical (sucrose), and then investigate the interaction between these solutions and plane-polarised light. The instrument used is a “home built” polarimeter which students assemble, allowing them to recognise that scientific apparatus need not be mysterious in its operation or construction. Student feedback data were conducted using the ACELL Student Learning Experience (ASLE) instrument. Analysis of the data shows that overwhelmingly students rate the experiment as “worthwhile” or better. However, many also rate the experiment as “boring” or “uninteresting”. By contrast, staff and student feedback at an ACELL experiential workshop rated the experiment very highly in terms of the “interest” criterion. In this contribution we discuss this alignment of staff and student perceptions of various elements, including “interest” and explore the correlation with the overall laboratory experience.

Influence of Surfactant Concentration on Laser-Based Gold Nanoparticle Formation and Stability

The time evolution of gold nanoparticle (AuNP) yields by in-situ laser irradiation from bulk gold in aqueous solutions containing the surfactant sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS) at concentrations above and below the critical micelle concentration in water is reported. These studies are augmented by transmission electron microscopy images of AuNP samples at each SDS concentration recorded after 90u2009min of laser irradiation. The results show that while a low concentration of SDS plays a role in the formation kinetics, there is no apparent influence of the SDS concentration around the surfactant critical micelle concentration on particle size during AuNP production.

Measuring the Internal Energy Content of Molecules Transported Across the Liquid-Gas Interface

Many details concerning the mechanism associated with the liberation of molecules from a liquid surface remain to be elucidated. We use the liquid microjet technique coupled with laser spectroscopy to measure the rotational and vibrational energy content of benzene spontaneously evaporating from a water-ethanol solution. These measurements provide molecular level insight into the mass and energy transfer processes associated with evaporation.

Laser-based formation of copper nanoparticles in aqueous solution: Optical properties, particle size distributions, and formation kinetics

We explore the formation kinetics, optical absorption spectra, and particle size distributions of copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) formed by direct laser ablation from the bulk metal via a process we refer to as Laser Ablation Synthesis in Solution (LASiS). Comparisons are made between CuNPs formed in pure water versus those formed in the presence of 1u2009×u200910−4 M solutions of the N-donor ligands 4,4′-bipyridine (4,4′Bipy) and 1H-5-(4-pyridyl)tetrazole (T-4Py). CuNPs formed in pure water and in the presence of 4,4′Bipy display similar UV-visible absorption spectra and very similar particle size distributions. In comparison, CuNPs formed in the presence of T-4Py display significantly different absorption properties, with the surface plasmon resonance transition blue-shifted by ∼55u2009nm, and a much smaller and narrower particle size distribution compared with the former samples. Based on previous literature reports, it is possible to ascribe these differences to differences in the CuNP surface oxidation states for samples prepared in the presence of T-4Py. However, an analysis of the formation kinetics of all three samples indicates near-identical behaviour.

The timing of an experiment in the laboratory program is crucial for the student laboratory experience: acylation of ferrocene as a case study

An assessment of the acylation of ferrocene laboratory exercise across three successive years resulted in a significant fluctuation in student perception of the experiment. This perception was measured by collecting student responses to an instrument immediately after the experiment, which includes Likert and open-ended responses from the student. Students in all three years identified technical benefits from the experiment. In Years 1 and 3, students also recognised the benefits of improving their conceptual understanding of organic chemistry. However, in Year 2, where background knowledge became a critical and limiting factor, all perception of conceptual understanding as an experiment objective was lost, and only recognition of technical development remained. Analysis of these data also indicated that students who have enough time to complete the experiment also perceive a measure of responsibility for their own learning, whereas time-poor students have an over-reliance on the laboratory notes and demonstrators. Addressing concepts such as these may be the triggers required for time-poor experiments to garner a positive student experience and maximise both the conceptual and technical benefits of the experiment.