Increasingly valued by employers, group-working skills are essential for students entering collaborative research environments. However, many teaching laboratory sessions involve individual/paired work and repetitive tasks, limiting student engagement and conceptual understanding. Our first-year course introduces experimental design within a ‘spiral curriculum’, fostering soft-skills, empowering student decision-making, and enhancing conceptual understanding.
Over six months, students gradually make increasingly complex experimental decisions, building confidence and methodological reasoning. Noting limited student understanding of solvent polarity, we adapted an expository solvatochromism practical as the apex of this design spiral, with students designing and conducting a group investigation in a single 6-hour session.
Our approach is inspired by argument-based learning, a collaborative, inquiry-based pedagogy, typically reserved for longer project-based labs. By judicious scaffolding, introducing relevant techniques and theory in two hours, the remaining four hours were devoted to students collaboratively designing and executing an investigation around three inquiry questions. This structure encourages peer discussion of methodology, enhancing student understanding.
Student feedback confirmed increased confidence in experimental design and the effects of solvent polarity. Instructors observed enhanced engagement and a deeper appreciation of the scientific method, demonstrating group-based inquiry is possible even at the introductory level, highlighting that early-stage students can thrive in authentic research-like environments.
Argument-based Learning
,Chemical Education
