Pharmacy students’ conceptions of theory–practice relation in the analytical chemistry laboratory – a phenomenographic study

Abstract

In the undergraduate student laboratory teaching, one of the most common goals is developing improved conceptual understanding linking theory and practice. This study presents a phenomenographic analysis of pharmacy students’ conceptions of the theory–practice relation in the laboratory. Through semi-structured interviews with pharmacy students about laboratory teaching and learning, we find that the students conceive the laboratory experience of the theory–practice relation in three qualitatively different ways. They perceive the laboratory experience as either (i) a visual representation of the theory, (ii) acting in a multimodal setting supporting theory, or (iii) as a complementary perspective in understanding theory. Furthermore, the conceptions were context-dependent and changed over time. We discuss how these three different perspectives may affect the students’ learning outcomes and suggest how teachers can accommodate the perspectives in their teaching.

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Introduction

Laboratory work has a central position in science education, especially in the chemical and pharmaceutical sciences. Many scientists and science teachers assign an important role to the practical work in the laboratory, and science educators see many benefits from students’ practical work (Hofstein and Lunetta, 1982, 2004; Tobin, 1990; Hofstein and Mamlok-Naaman, 2007). The learning objectives claimed to be associated with laboratory work are practical skills, interest and motivation, problem-solving, application of scientific principles, and understanding of the nature of science (Hofstein and Lunetta, 1982, 2004). Reid and Shah (2007) summarise the goals for laboratory work in a chemistry setting as obtaining: skills relating to learning chemistry, practical skills, scientific skills (observation, deduction, and interpretation), and general skills.

Even though many intended goals for laboratory teaching have been proposed, the relationship between students’ laboratory experiences and learning outcomes is still unclear (Hofstein and Mamlok-Naaman, 2007). A substantial critique of laboratory work was presented by Hodson (1993), who claimed that laboratory work is unproductive, confusing, and often used without clear goals and well-thought-through processes. With a broad range of goals for laboratory teaching, teachers need to clearly define the intended goals to avoid misalignment with students’ expectations (Bruck and Towns, 2013; DeKorver and Towns, 2016; George-Williams et al., 2018; Seery, 2020). In addition, there is still a need for more evidence of the relationship between student learning and laboratory experiences (Bretz, 2019).

A recent review of empirical studies (Agustian et al., 2022) reported that student learning outcomes from laboratory teaching can be discerned within five clusters: experimental competences, disciplinary learning, higher-order thinking, transversal competences, and affective outcomes. The cluster of disciplinary learning involves conceptual understanding, theory–practice relation, and academic achievements (e.g., grades). In the empirical studies, researchers reported improvements in students’ understanding of theoretical concepts and the benefit of laboratory work in improving such conceptual understanding by connecting theory and practice (Agustian et al., 2022). Furthermore, studies show that students highly value the laboratory for the possibility of connecting theory and practice (Boud et al., 1980) and even more when lectures and experiments are closely linked (Borrmann, 2008).

Students’ conceptions of science are closely related to their epistemic beliefs. In a seminal work from the ‘70s, Perry presents students’ epistemic development over their college years (Perry, 1970). Perry developed a scheme that categorises students’ epistemic beliefs in nine different positions further divided into stages, dualism (position 1–2); multiplism (position 3–4); relativism (position 5–6); and commitment in relativism (position 7–9). The college students scored an average of 2.4 in their first years and 3.2 in the last years in the Perry scheme, with the numbers referring to their position. This leaves many students in the dualistic stages when they enter college or university (Finster, 1989; Grove and Bretz, 2010). In a study reported by Mazzarone and Grove (2013), they investigated students’ changes in epistemological beliefs over the first two years. Differences in the students’ responses in the Chemistry Expectations Survey CHEMX (Grove et al., 2007) were followed up with student interviews. From the interviews and the survey, it is evident that the students’ experiences in the laboratory are of great importance for developing their epistemic beliefs. They highlighted the laboratory as the place where theory connected to the physical world. Going back to Perry's stage of dualism, one such dualism could be theory vs. practice. A central part of scientific activity is related to the representation of phenomena through theory, or conversely, experiments may serve to corroborate or illustrate the theory. From this perspective, the theory is foregrounded and the experiment is backgrounded – experiments are thought of as support for theoretical claims. However, in the interplay between theory and practice, there is another side of the scientific endeavour, a material and technological side, which is crucial in understanding how science develops. This happens in the interplay between the theory and the experiment. Ian Hacking describes this two-sidedness of science in his book “Representing and intervening” (Hacking, 1983). With a dualistic epistemic belief, students will perceive these two sides of science as separate entities. As students develop their epistemic beliefs, they will understand the interdependency of theory and practice. The students will move towards an understanding and appreciation of both the representing and intervening aspects of science and how they interplay. Hacking describes the notions of representing and intervening in this way: “We represent in order to intervene, and we intervene in the light of representations” (Hacking, 1983, p. 31).

The theory–practice relation is prevalent in teachers’ descriptions of goals for laboratory instruction and is also present in students’ learning outcomes of laboratory work (Reid and Shah, 2007; Bruck et al., 2010; Bretz et al., 2013; Bruck and Towns, 2013; Galloway et al., 2016; George-Williams et al., 2018). However, the argument for teaching theory in the laboratory does not have a substantial claim according to Hofstein and Lunetta (1982, 2004). Seery (2020) further raises the question that even if there is evidence for learning chemistry theory in the laboratory, why would we choose one experiment over the other? Is some theory or concept more important than the other?

We want to investigate students’ conceptions of the theory–practice relation to elaborate on how students conceive the theory–practice relation in the laboratory in an undergraduate context. Therefore, we aim to answer the research question:

– “What are the different ways in which 2nd year pharmacy students experience the role of the practical laboratory work in the theory–practice relation?”

Theoretical background

Students’ differences in conceptions of learning are interesting because many have suggested and found correlations between students’ conceptions and approaches to learning and learning outcomes (Trigwell and Prosser, 1991; Ramsden, 1999; Richardson, 2005; Ullah et al., 2016).

In this study, we apply the research approach of phenomenography. The object of a phenomenographic study is the variation in experiences of a phenomenon in a certain group (Marton and Booth, 1997). The underlying assumption is that there is a limited number of qualitatively different ways of experiencing a phenomenon. In this study, the phenomenon is the role of the laboratory in the theory–practice relation. The outcome of a phenomenographic study is a description of the different ways of experiencing the phenomenon, also called categories. The focus in these descriptions is on the relational differences between the categories.

Phenomenography has been widely used in higher education contexts but has not yet been widely used in the study of laboratory education. A few recent exceptions are Burrows et al. (2017), who investigated students’ perception of project-based learning in organic chemistry, and Chiu et al. (2016), who explored students’ conceptions of learning science by laboratory work. Chiu et al. described six different categories of students’ conceptions of learning science by laboratory: memorizing, acquiring manipulative skills, obtaining authentic experience, examining prior knowledge, reviewing prior learning profiles, and achieving in-depth understanding. Some of these categories relate to the student's experience of theory–practice relation, but it was not a specific focus in that study.

Students’ experiences differ from their different intentions or purposes in a given context. The focus of their awareness may therefore differ and lead to qualitatively different ways of experiencing phenomena. From the phenomenographic perspective, experience and learning rely on two components of conscious awareness – the referential aspect and the structural aspects. The referential aspect is concerned with the meaning of the experience – e.g., quantitative determination of a drug as part of quality control. In contrast, the structural aspect is concerned with the individual parts of the experience and their relationship, e.g., the different parts of the exercise (Marton and Booth, 1997; Han and Ellis, 2019). The structural and referential aspects are always present in experience, but the experiences differ depending on the student's focus of awareness (Marton and Booth, 1997, p. 87). This framework has been defined and used with great variation (Harris, 2011). In this study, we use the framework to describe critical aspects distinguishing the categories of conceptions from each other (Collier-Reed and Ingerman, 2013). A learning process always involves “what is being learned” and “how is it being learned”. These questions can be considered in terms of meaning and structure, and we may consider what students learn about the theory–practice relation, both in terms of the meaning they ascribe to the relation and the way they understand the context and constitution of the theory–practice relation.

Method

Data collection

The empirical data consist of 30 semi-structured interviews with students from the pharmacy program at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH). The students were interviewed at the beginning of the semester (16) and shortly after the exam (14).

The students were presented with the research project during a lecture in the course Pharmaceutical Analytical Chemistry. They were asked to fill out a short questionnaire and volunteer for the interviews by ticking a box. Ninety-six students (of a cohort of 237) answered the questionnaire (see the ESI†). Twenty students volunteered for the interviews. However, due to unresponsiveness and withdrawal, only 16 students were interviewed. Based on the questionnaire, the student sample appeared representative of the broadness of the student population based on the number of classes passed, previous school background, and self-assessment of their performance and experience in the laboratory. However, in qualitative research, saturation in the data indicates the quality of the sample. There is no “one size fits all”, when it comes to saturation in qualitative methods. Fusch and Ness (2015) describe saturation as rich (quality) and thick (quantity). The interview guide secured rich answers from the students within the themes. Regarding thickness, we were limited by the number of students volunteering to participate. However, we experienced during the coding of the interviews that even after a few interviews, no new themes emerged, and we take this as a sign of saturation.

The course is compulsory 7.5 ECTS‡ in the 4th semester of the bachelor program and includes 72 hours of laboratory work (18 × 4 h) and 19 lectures (45 min) supplemented with videos and quizzes. Students work in groups of 2–3 in the laboratory and hand in reports as groups and receive feedback on the reports in the laboratory. The course is based on instrumental analytical chemistry including liquid and gas chromatography (LC and GC) with spectrophotometry or mass spectrometry detection. The exercises include observing the influence of changing instrumental parameters, sample preparation, calibration methods, and critical data analysis. They are closely related to the quality evaluation of pharmaceutical preparations. Students prepare protocols for analysis based on pharmacopeia standards, execute the quantitative analysis and evaluate the result. The laboratory work is evaluated as passed/failed based on reports including study questions. Furthermore, a 3 h written examination is assessed by grading. This exam is closely related to the calculations and study questions answered in the reports. However, in a previous study, we found that not all students conceive that there is a strong connection between the laboratory work and report writing and the final exam (Finne et al., 2021). The central learning objectives for the course are to obtain an overview of principles and application of pharmaceutically relevant analytical methods, to transfer a given pharmacopeia standard to a work plan, perform the analysis, critically evaluate results and uncertainties, and report data. Due to the pandemic of COVID-19, the students only completed half of the laboratory course on campus. The remaining part was completed by making the same reports as under ‘normal’ circumstances, based on handed-out data sets rather than their own data, and with the help of a few explanatory videos. The assessment form was not changed as a result of the pandemic.

The interview guides were based on the congruence model from Hounsell and Hounsell (2007), describing six areas of congruence important for developing ways of thinking and practicing for high-quality learning. The six congruence areas are students’ background and aspirations, course organization and management, teaching activities, assessment and feedback, learning support, and curriculum aims, scope, and structure. The guides were developed to cover all of the six congruence areas through the following themes:

The focus of the first interview:

– Previous experiences with laboratory work

– Aspirations and reasons for studying pharmacy

– Role of laboratory teaching for their learning

The focus of the second interview:

– Experience of laboratory vs. lockdown “online” version

– Preparation for the exam and experience of the exam

– Experience of learning outcome

Usually, the interview guide in a phenomenographic study is more open than we describe it here. We acknowledge that this is a deviation from more traditional phenomenography. We used the congruence model as a scaffold and as guidance in the interviews since it covers important aspects of the experience of quality learning. Thus, we use the congruence model to focus on the phenomenon of quality learning in the laboratory. All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. All students had given informed consent to participate according to the GDPR rules.

Data analysis

Based on reading and re-reading the transcripts, the first author comprised a condensed profile for each student, and important sentences were noted. The overall emerging themes were discussed based on selected full transcripts and the profiles. Students were only explicitly asked about their background and aspirations. Apart from this, four overall themes emerged from the initial analysis: (i) students’ experiences of what it means to understand, (ii) students’ experience of theory–practice relation, (iii) students’ experience of the learning process throughout the course, and (iv) the role of affective factors. These additional themes arose from the focus points in the interviews but are analytical constructs.

The present study focuses solely on the theory–practice relation. Similar statements from this theme were grouped and initial categories were formed: the lab as help to remember, verify understanding, verify knowledge, or experience differences. Statements aimed at representing the variation and distinctness in each category were identified (first author) and checked against the full interview to verify that the interpretation was representative and true to the students’ experience. The final categories were described with a focus on differences in students’ experiences and refined through several iterations. Following this, the students’ conceptions were coded based on their profiles. The categories are described on the collective level, meaning that individual students may express more than one conception.

A dialogic reliability check was applied by discussion and agreement on the categorization (Åkerlind, 2005). In a dialogic reliability check, the researchers discuss and critique each researcher's interpretive hypotheses and find a mutual agreement based on this discussion. This method was selected over an interrater reliability measure, which is becoming more common in chemical education research (Watts and Finkenstaedt-Quinn, 2021). However, an interrater reliability check may be quite uninformative as categories are described on the collective level, individual statements cannot entirely express the category and some statements may express traits from more than one category (Sandbergh, 1997).

Results

The phenomenographic analysis of the data shows that the students display three different conceptions of the laboratory experience concerning the theory–practice relation:

A. The laboratory experience as providing a visual representation of the theory,

B. The laboratory experience as acting in a multimodal setting supporting theory, and

C. The laboratory experience as providing a complementary perspective in understanding theory

In the following, we rely on the students’ use of the word theory. It is clear from the interviews that the terms “theory” and “theoretical” refer at least to the concepts and models described in textbooks and discussed in lectures but are sometimes also the theoretical descriptions found in protocols of the experiments. In the interviews, “theory” is often contrasted with “practice” which describes work done in the laboratory, especially related to the execution of experiments and manipulation of instruments and chemicals. Quotes from students are marked with DXX-X where the first two xx is the participant number; these are unique to each student. The number after the dash is 1 for the first interview and 3 for the last. For some students, there is an interview in the middle marked with 2. This round of interviews was conducted as a response to the lockdown but is not a part of this analysis. Findings from the second round of interviews are reported elsewhere (see Finne et al., 2022)).

Conception A – the laboratory experience as providing a visual representation

When the students express the conception of the laboratory experience as a visual representation of the theory, they focus on the close similarity between theory and practice. They describe the theory as general expressions of concepts and phenomena and the laboratory experiments as illustrations or instances of specific situations of the general theory. Thus, the laboratory experience exemplifies the knowledge the student has already encountered in theory. The students use the visual representation from the laboratory to improve their understanding and aid in recalling the theory and concepts.

Several students express that they are visually oriented in their learning, probably referring to individual learning styles (see e.g. (Dunn and Dunn, 1978; Stone, 2021). This is exemplified in the following quotes where the students express a clear understanding of themselves as a “picture-person” or as being very “visual”. The laboratory stimulates their visual sense as they observe instruments and reactions, which helps them to make sense of the theory and concepts. “My brain needs a picture of it before I can understand it. Especially because I’m very much a ‘picture-person’ so my memory more easily remembers things if it is in picture form […] compared to something I have read because I forget that.” D11-3 – June 2020

“ all sorts of people have written this and all sorts of people have said that… but can I SEE it? I’m very visual so if I can see things and imagine them in my mind then it makes sense to me. But, reading a text without pictures or illustrations – it just disappears completely. I catch nothing of it… completely … well it comes in through the eyes, but [apparently] exits again through all other holes. Because it does not stick anywhere.” D05-1 – February 2020

Furthermore, the images the students visualize are more realistic and detailed when they have experienced the reactions and instruments in the laboratory: “I also feel that when we’ve been to the analytical chemistry lab and have read about the different instruments… to actually see it, to get the instruments opened and see: ‘Okay, this is what it actually looks like’. And sometimes it is completely different from what you imagined when you sat at home and read in the book.” D16-1 – February 2020

Thus, from this perspective, the laboratory experiences provide a visual representation of theory, a collection of visual images strengthening the understanding of the theory–practice relation. This conception expresses a “passive” approach to laboratory work, as it mainly focuses on how the laboratory experience provides images or pictures that may aid in understanding the theory but does not describe the students own engagement with the apparatus or the process. The students emphasise the representational aspect of science in Hackings understanding of representing and intervening.

Conception B – the laboratory experience as acting in a multimodal setting

Students with this conception of the laboratory experience emphasize that it is a “whole body experience” with all senses in use, not just the vision. Moreover, the conception stresses the action part of the experience – the laboratory experience is not just about acquiring a different image or representation but also about doing or acting in the laboratory setting. Thus, students emphasize the importance of “doing it themselves” or “having it in your hands”. They focus on creating their own data and taking ownership of the data produced. They experience the laboratory as a place to experience phenomena and correct their own misinterpretations of the theory. They conceive the laboratory experience as acting in a multimodal setting, where they create their own understanding of the theory supported by the embodied experience.

In one interview, the interviewer asked the student why the experiment could not be watched on a video instead:

“Well, I guess you might do that, but I don’t think it would have the same effect. I’m not quite sure why, I just don’t think so… I think it is something basically human in some way…being there physically. Now, I lift this cup, and there is a chemical in it and I put that into a bottle… quite fundamental” D01-3 – June 2020

The students’ action plays a role in the construction of knowledge. Their understanding of how the knowledge was created improves due to their active role in establishing it: “this machine spat out this chromatogram so … well, it doesn’t come from nothing! It is not just some scientific article they [the teachers] have printed and said: “now, let's look at this chromatogram, that is probably right”. You know for sure that this is your own data, you know, it is something you created yourself. It's not just some numbers someone made up.” D05-1 – February 2020

Several students describe that the laboratory experience makes theory, data, and experiments more real, as opposed to what is “in the books”. This certainly does not imply that they consider what they read as being “fake”. Instead, it refers to them being active in the construction of the knowledge, which makes the theory more relatable. When they can reproduce the theory and use it in the laboratory, they take ownership of the knowledge – they learn about theory through practice, and the theory enables them to understand how to act in the lab: “It gives me so much more when I have it between my hands. Everything suddenly connects when I read as well and then… when I’m in the lab then… ‘ah, okay, I do this because of that. It just clicks together differently, I think.” D03-1 – February 2020

The students who conceive the laboratory experience as acting in a multimodal setting show an active approach to the laboratory work. Through their action, they collect the experiences of theory and practice relation. As in conception A, they focus on the similarity or compliance between the laboratory experience and the theory. The students have begun to grasp the importance of representing as well as intervening, though they have yet to understand how these two aspects of science interact and interplay.

Conception C – the laboratory experience as a complementary perspective

When the students experience the laboratory as a complementary component, they focus on the differences between the theory and the practice. They acknowledge that theory and practice are complementary and describe the experiences they cannot obtain from reading textbooks or manuals. They emphasize the importance of observation and actively acquiring practical skills in learning about the technologies, the chemical entities, and the reactions. “I think it is the practical aspect. One thing is to read about a method 100 times, another is to actually perform a titration […]. The first time we did that it was so much more difficult than what we had read in the manual. ‘well, you add something dropwise until it changes colour’, but that is pretty abstract […] how much of a colour change do you want? Do you want dark magenta or a bit lighter? […] Such a thing as weighing. It sounds simple enough to pour something and get the exact decimals, but there is often much more to it. Well, you have to remember to close it [the analytical scale] because the air can interfere, and well… stuff like that. I think, there is so much you just didn’t get from the theory, however, as soon as you were in the lab you learned it.” D03-1 – February 2020

The point, that the laboratory work by itself does not necessarily reveal the relation to theory, is highlighted by students who express that the practical work in the laboratory can be completed without understanding what you do: “Yes, you can perform many of the steps, even without the understanding of it because it is like a baking recipe. Then you just add this and do that and that. But, if you don’t get an understanding of it, then you cannot bring it with you.” D04-1 – February 2020

In this way, the student underlines that the complementary relationship between theory and practice forms the understanding and the skillset needed for future applications. Students also focus on the importance of experimental circumstances. They experience that the experiments are more complex and complicated than the impression given in the theoretical description and that the complexity adds to the understanding:

“Some things you just can’t get from reading […] of course you can refer to the theory. But you can’t, as far as I’m concerned… I wouldn’t know where to look about all the practical stuff. ‘How are you supposed to do this?’, and ‘what if the machine says like this?’ Well, all those sorts of things are impossible to find. And you wouldn’t be able to ask about those things [when not in the lab], and it's really valuable.” D02-3 – June 2020

One student described the experience as building a “data center” that collects the experiences and forms a knowledge base from the laboratory work that enables the relationship to theory. The “data center” builds expertise, or intuition. You learn from mistakes and realise that the theory alone does not reveal the whole picture: “You get a feel for it. You get some sort of – you gain a kind of …. data center, or… You just get a lot of data about how things work that you don’t get from the books. […] There are a lot of things you may have missed out on, and such. […] You might think: ‘yes, that's probably fine’, and then when you’ve tried it in the laboratory, then you find that the solution is not at all in solution. It is filled with particles, and it is obvious to everyone that of course, you should have filtered it. And you are like: ‘How was that obvious for anyone?’ […] But then you got to see it, and you got to do it, and then when you read it afterward you could actually understand that of course some compound was formed that just had to be removed. It just wasn’t obvious before you had tried yourself” D05-1 – February 2020

This student continues in the second interview to describe how the small details that can go wrong in the laboratory, make you reflect – a practical perspective that is absent in the theoretical descriptions: “When you read a USP [U.S. Pharmacopeia] at home and think about how and what you want to do, then no mistakes happen. None of those weird uncertainties happens […] what if it is not in solution after 10 minutes? […] will it tamper with the sample if you do it [sonicate] for too long? All of these thoughts are left out. It is not something you think about when you just read at home. […] all those small things that can go wrong […] in the lab there is always something. […] You get to think about all sorts of things you would not have thought about if you just sat at home because there would not have been a problem. […] You can’t take that experience with you when you haven’t been in the laboratory.” D05-3 – June 2020

Making mistakes in the laboratory triggers reflection on the student's present knowledge and considerations on the practical handling of samples and the causes of failures. “Things go wrong if you do not do it properly and then you get to try to explain yourself why […] in practice it is just different because there are so many parameters you have to take into consideration […] those human errors. ‘When do they happen?’ ‘What do they mean?’ […] An example could be the first time we did MS spectroscopy, there was just something that puzzled us. It would not make sense. […] could it be this? Or that? […] you always have to figure out what went wrong? Why? And what can we do to prevent this the next time?” D06-3 – June 2020

The students who conceive the laboratory work as providing a complementary perspective to theory acknowledge the active approach to the laboratory and the use of different senses and modalities of learning. Still, unlike the two other conceptions, they focus on the differences between theory and practice and how the two complement each other. This is a crucial starting point for the students’ understanding of the interplay between representing and intervening that Hacking describes.

Discussion

Critical aspects of the referential and structural aspects of conceptions of theory–practice relation

In this study, we find that students present three qualitatively different ways of understanding the role of the laboratory in theory–practice relations. The conceptions A, B, and C above are described in that order to show an increasing sophistication of the student's understanding of the theory–practice relation. Two critical aspects of the theory–practice connection appear from the three different categories. One aspect considers the students’ focus on active or passive engagement with the laboratory experience. This we call the referential aspect of the experience. The students either create meaning without engagement leading to conceptions of the laboratory as a representation of previous known theory (passive) or through engagement with the material in experimentation (the active perspective). The other critical aspect is related to the structural aspect of experience. It concerns the students’ focus either on the similarity and compliance of theory with practice or the differences between theory and practice.

Concerning the referential aspect of the passive versus active approach, all students are of course active and perform diverse manipulative and procedural steps in the laboratory setting. However, according to their statements, the meaning-making part of the laboratory experience is quite dependent on the situation. When students express the passive approach they experience that the “theory” manifests itself in a phenomenon they observe or see in the laboratory, whereas students having an active understanding of the meaning-making process in the laboratory describe how they have been involved in the processes and created meaning by engaging with the phenomenon. Concerning the structural aspect, the students focused on either compliance with the laboratory experience with theory or conceiving the laboratory experience as providing complementary experiences to their theoretical understanding. A schematic presentation of the three categories is shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Schematic representation of relational differences between categories

Conception	Referential aspect	Structural aspect
A	Passive mental engagement	Focus on similarities
B	Active mental engagement	Focus on similarities
C	Active mental engagement	Focus on differences and whole

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The students’ conceptions of theory–practice relation form a hierarchical structure going from a more passive conception focusing on a visual representation of theory to B focusing on doing the experiments themselves in a multimodal setting, and finally, a conception highlighting the complementary nature of the relationship between practice and theory.

Students expressing conception A are very focused on pictures provided in the laboratory setting and the visual sense. They often use the term “see”, but it is difficult to interpret from the interviews whether the term is meant literally or is used as a metaphor for understanding. At least in western countries, sight is perceived as the most important of the senses (Majid et al., 2018). This may explain why conception A is so distinctly focused on the visual sense. We have placed conception A – the laboratory as a visual representation – lowest in the hierarchy of theory–practice relations. This is following other taxonomies such as Blooms, where the two lowest levels of understanding, remember and understand, are often associated with verbs related to the visual sense such as trace, outline, point, match, identify and visualize, observe, respectively (see e.g., (Shabatura, 2014). Furthermore, with this way of conceiving the theory–practice relation, students limit their awareness to focus on the similarity or identity between theory and practice and how the laboratory experience can inform their theoretical understanding.

Students with conception B focus on creating and doing the experiments themselves. The focus on seeing is less pronounced, and there is a focus on doing and actively participating in the experiment. The experience in the laboratory is centered on the embodied and active experience (Hardahl et al., 2019). Thus, the experience of getting the instrument working, being physically present in the laboratory, and playing an active role in creating the data plays a significant role. The same important insight was obtained by Dukes (2020) when reflecting on how to teach an instrumental analytical chemistry course during the COVID-19 pandemic. He found that the waiting time and manipulation of the instruments are essential for the students’ experiences of engagement with the data afterward. So, when it comes to practical work in the laboratory, learning simply “to see differently” might be a bit simplistic since the experience has an important embodied dimension.

Another way of understanding the distinction between conception A and conception B and C is by relating them to Ian Hacking's description of two central objectives of science: representing and intervening. In the interviews, conception A foregrounds theory by seeing the laboratory experience as a (visual) representation of the theory. Thus, it emphasises theory in the theory–practice relation. Conception B moves beyond representing intervention by stressing how the laboratory experience is also crucially an experience of acting in a physical and technological environment. And conception C goes further by recognizing that the relationship between theory and practice is not a question of seeing examples of theory in practice, but rather recognizing the strong connection between them. An example could be the development of observational skills. Of course, observations are conditioned by our theoretical expectations, and if the students do not have any expectations beforehand, they will not know what to observe (Johnstone and Al-Shuaili, 2001). Hence, theory or some sort of expectation is an important prerequisite for going into the laboratory, but observations also rely on equipment and how that equipment works (Hacking, 1983, p. 230). Understanding what it takes to get the equipment running is a focus in conception C. As Hacking puts it: “[…] A laboratory course in which all the experiments worked would be fine technology, but would teach nothing at all about experimentation” (Hacking, 1983, p. 230). These theoretical elaborations match well the gist of what is expressed by the students who represent conception C in the interviews.

Considering the different perspectives students express on the theory–practice relation, teachers’ perspectives, when they refer to the theory–practice relation in laboratory learning, become interesting. For example, in a large qualitative study on students’ and teachers’ understanding of aims for practical chemistry courses (George-Williams et al., 2018), it was found that first-year students tend to focus more on the theory–practice relation compared to upper-level students, who instead focus more on experimental design and the manipulative skills (George-Williams et al., 2018). Furthermore, their study observed that many of the goals described by the university teachers were rather simplistic, and they suggested that teachers discuss their views on the aims of laboratory teaching. Thus, the “theory–practice relation” may be referred to by students and teachers without considering what it means. This can be a problem if the way we assess laboratory work is likewise promoting a simplistic conception of the relation. When this happens, is it perhaps also because the theoretical understanding is easier and cheaper to assess compared to a broader range of laboratory competences?

Implications

The finding that students hold different conceptions of the laboratory's role in theory–practice relation and identifying the referential and the structural aspects that make the different conceptions distinct may be used for course developers. Changing the context during a course may change students’ conception toward a more active referential approach. More research on which changes could move the students to the more elaborate conception C is needed. We would suggest looking at the influence of the exam on the students’ conceptions, the openness of the laboratory instruction (Domin, 1999) or the effect of the teachers’ or teaching assistants’ conception of theory–practice relation. It is very conceivable that other teaching contexts would lead students to express other or additional conceptions of the theory practice relation.

As students have different conceptions of the theory–practice relation, the same could be the case for teachers. Therefore, a similar investigation of teachers’ conceptions would be interesting. We know that teachers’ conceptions of learning affect students’ conceptions (Richardson, 2005). Hence, alignment of teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the theory–practice relation is important. As the term theory–practice relation is one of the most prominent learning outcomes in course descriptions, studying the different perceptions of the theory–practice relation among teachers, in a course or even curriculum or department would probably be beneficial for the learning outcomes.

A general encouragement to reflection and discussion among teachers on the meaning of the theory–practice relation could lead to more specific descriptions of this concept in higher education laboratory education. Eventually, this term could be replaced by more detailed descriptions in the individual courses. We encourage teachers to carefully reflect upon the theory's emphasis in laboratory courses. We suggest more focus on the practical aspects and the tacit embodied dimensions of laboratory experiences may promote different types of learning outcomes from theory and practice.

Limitations

Data on the student grades have not been collected. Hence, we cannot comment on the relation between students’ achievement and their conception of the theory–practice relation. Furthermore, as our recruitment took place via a lecture with only half of the students present, we recognize a certain sample bias as the type of students who volunteer to be interviewed may not be representative. Due to COVID-19, the students experienced a lockdown halfway through the laboratory course, and the situation likely affected the students’ experiences.

Conclusion

This study shows that students in the course Pharmaceutical Analytical Chemistry express qualitatively different experiences of theory–practice relations. We find three different conceptions A, B, and C. The conceptions are ranged hierarchically, with conception A as the least sophisticated and conception C as the most sophisticated. Conception A describes the laboratory experience as a visual representation of the theory, and how the visual impressions from the laboratory experience help the students to memorize the concepts and theory. Conception B describes the laboratory experience as acting in a multimodal setting supporting theory acquisition by following procedures, interacting with instruments, and being involved in creating data. The students perceive the laboratory as a place for doing chemistry that helps them relate to the theory, and the bodily experience supports their engagement in theory and concepts. Conception C describes the laboratory experience as a complementary perspective to understanding theory. The students highlight the learning gained from making mistakes and dealing with problem-solving from unideal situations.

Two different critical aspects emerge from the analysis. The referential aspect concerns how students focus their awareness. This is divided into a passive approach where students describe their learning experience in terms of passive observation of the phenomena and an active process where students describe their learning experience in terms of the laboratory actively giving meaning to the theory by intervening with the phenomena. The structural aspect concerns students’ focus on the laboratory experience as confirmation of or compliance with the theory in contrast to perceiving the experience as complementary to the theory. The conceptions were dependent on context and students might change conceptions over time.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts to declare.

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, a huge thanks to the students volunteering for interviews. The project was supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation through grant no. NNF18SA0034990.

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Footnotes

† Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Students survey and table about students’ conceptions of theory–practice relation. See DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/d2rp00092j

‡ European Credit Transfer System – 60 ECTS correspond to 1 year full-time studies (1640 h), 7.5 ECTS equals 205 h.

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