A rubric to characterize inquiry in the undergraduate chemistry laboratory
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Michael E.
Fay
a,
Nathaniel P.
Grove
a,
Marcy Hamby
Towns
b and
Stacey Lowery
Bretz
*a
aMiami University, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Oxford, OH 45056. E-mail: bretzsl@muohio.edu
bPurdue University, Department of Chemistry, West Lafayette, IN 47907
Abstract
Consensus does not exist among chemists as to the essential characteristics of inquiry in the undergraduate laboratory. A rubric developed for elementary and secondary science classrooms to distinguish among levels of inquiry was modified for the undergraduate chemistry laboratory. Both peer-reviewed experiments in the literature and commercially available experiments were evaluated using the rubric, revealing a diversity of uses for the word inquiry. The modified rubric provides a valid and reliable standard of measure for chemists to examine their laboratory curriculum. [Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2007, 8 (2), 212-219.]