Development, Implementation, and Analysis of a National Survey of Faculty Goals for Undergraduate Chemistry Laboratory

This work reports the development of a survey for laboratory goals in undergraduate chemistry, the analysis of reliable and valid data collected from a national survey of college chemistry faculty, and a synthesis of the findings. The study used a sequential exploratory mixed-methods design. Faculty goals for laboratory emerged across seven factors, four of which—research experience, group work, error analysis, and laboratory writing—showed significant differences by course type. Significant differences between goals were also discovered when analyzed by external funding for the laboratory versus no funding. Synthesis across the previously published qualitative study and the quantitative study reported herein yields areas of emphasis in the curriculum for specific goals. This work adds weight to the growing body of global literature that implores faculty to define and assess their goals for laboratory.