Laboratories play a crucial role in the undergraduate science curriculum and the effectiveness of learning in laboratories is influenced by learners’ interactions with other students, the instructors, and the equipment used. In this study, a pre-lab survey was used to collect information about students’ expectations of interactions in chemistry laboratories and how they can be ranked according to their importance. Post-lab surveys were used to capture students’ perspectives about the frequency of interactions that existed in laboratory sessions they had completed. Direct observations of some laboratories were also conducted principally to validate students’ self-reported interactions. The data were also sorted by three levels of student achievement in order to relate students’ expectations of the importance of different interactions (pre-lab survey) and their self-reported frequency of interactions (post-lab survey) with their laboratory grades. Results from the pre-lab survey showed that student–instructor interactions were anticipated to be the most important ahead of conducting the laboratory activity, whereas results from the post-lab surveys showed that the most frequent interactions occurred between students. Students’ self-reports (post-lab survey) and the direct observations agreed well suggesting that the post-lab survey is a robust tool for capturing the frequencies of student interactions in this and future studies. The results also showed that students gaining high grades both anticipated the importance of, and then engaged more frequently in, two-way communications with both students and instructors whereas students with lower grades placed a relatively higher reliance upon passive interactions such as the pre-lab briefing, the laboratory manual and internet sources. Finally, recommendations are offered to curriculum designers, instructors and students based on the overall findings of the study.

中文翻译：

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在化学实验室中发展对本科生互动的理解

实验室在本科科学课程中起着至关重要的作用，并且实验室中学习的有效性受学习者与其他学生，讲师和所用设备的交互作用的影响。在这项研究中，实验室前调查被用来收集有关学生对化学实验室中相互作用的期望以及如何根据其重要性对其进行排名的信息。实验室后调查用于捕获学生对他们已经完成的实验室会议中存在的互动频率的看法。还主要对一些实验室进行了直接观察，以验​​证学生的自我报告的相互作用。数据还按学生成绩的三个等级进行排序，以使学生对不同互动的重要性的期望（实验前调查）以及他们自我报告的互动频率（实验后调查）与实验室成绩相关。实验室前调查的结果表明，在进行实验室活动之前，学生与教师的互动被认为是最重要的，而实验室后调查的结果表明，学生与教师之间的互动最频繁。学生的自我报告（实验室后调查）和直接观察结果非常吻合，表明实验室后调查是捕捉本次和未来研究中学生互动频率的有力工具。结果还表明，取得高分的学生都预料到了以下方面的重要性：然后更频繁地与学生和讲师进行双向交流，而年级较低的学生则对被动互动的依赖相对较高，例如实验室前的情况介绍，实验室手册和互联网资源。最后，根据研究的总体结果向课程设计者，讲师和学生提供建议。