Students’ perceptions of common practices, including some academically dishonest practices, in the undergraduate general chemistry classroom laboratory

Abstract

In this study 635 general chemistry I and general chemistry II students completed a 40-item Likert-scale survey on their opinions of various practices, including some academically dishonest practices, that might occur in the general chemistry laboratory. The practices surveyed were focused on areas including preparation before coming to the laboratory, getting help with the pre-lab assignments, various decisions made by the teaching assistant or laboratory instructor, getting help with the calculations and questions required by the laboratory report, and various methods of obtaining data in the laboratory. An exploratory factor analysis of the results was conducted to identify the underlying factors in the survey, and the scores of the general chemistry I and general chemistry II students along these factors were compared. The findings were generally consistent with results in the literature, but also provided implications for students’ enculturation into chemistry and science as they progressed through their general chemistry coursework.