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High School Students' Perceptions of Their Laboratory Classroom and the Copying of Laboratory Work

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Dana Mazzaro and Shanese Page

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ 07042

Dawn Del Carlo

Department of Chemistry, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0423

J. Chem. Educ., 2006, 83 (9), p 1362

DOI: 10.1021/ed083p1362

Publication Date (Web): September 1, 2006

Abstract

Many courses have been proposed in an effort to train future scientists to be ethical practitioners, yet little has been done to examine the ethical beliefs and practices that already exist in the laboratory classroom. This current research involves high school students in various types of chemistry classes, from general chemistry to honors level. Data from students responses to a partially open-ended survey were collected and analyzed, providing insight into students' perceptions of their laboratory classroom and subsequent feelings toward the copying of lab work. Results indicate that most students believe obtaining the "right answer" is the most important goal in a lab exercise. In fact, the data reveal that while the majority of students surveyed redo experiments when they go awry, nearly 15% of those surveyed said that they "copy another's data" to earn credit for the lab. This research also suggests that students' perceptions of group work and written lab work influence their decisions of whether to copy another's work or let others copy their work.