Development of some graduate attributes through constructive alignment for formative assessments of practicals: A case of chemistry students

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-134-0_20How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Graduate Attributes; Laboratory Practicals; Constructive Alignment; Assessment

Abstract

Whether laboratory practicals (LPs) enhance theory learning and live up to expectations in science education or not is an ongoing discussion among researchers. LPs are expected to enhance students’ understanding of the theory learned in class and create an opportunity to develop employability skills. However, when LPs become routine and unstimulating, students focus on finishing the practical within the allocated time and acquiring data for post-laboratory assessment, rather than learning. Furthermore, when practical reports are assessed for grading not for developmental purposes, this compromises quality teaching. This is a missed opportunity to develop essential graduate attributes (GAs) like timekeeping, handling skills, safety management, and independent/critical thinking. This research aims to align LPs as continuous assessments to develop some GAs constructively; focusing on laboratory practice, safety, conduct, timekeeping, and housekeeping. This research was conducted in laboratories of the Department of Chemistry at MUT during the first semester of the 2023 academic year. Assessment ‘as’ learning and ‘for’ learning was implemented to promote student self-learning and for diagnostic purposes, respectively. A sample of 21 Inorganic Chemistry II students was used. Data was collected using the 3-Likert scale criteria, then analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Results indicate that ~50% of students must read the practical manual before laboratory sessions. Moreover, ~20% of the students indicated they need help communicating the practical results; and for ~18%, the LPs are not interesting, revealing that more intervention is needed. The study identified the student GAs that need to be developed to enhance learning and increase employability skills.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - N. E. Damoyi
AU  - T. P. Makhathini
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/11/06
TI  - Development of some graduate attributes through constructive alignment for formative assessments of practicals: A case of chemistry students
BT  - Proceedings of the 10th Focus Conference (TFC 2023)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 299
EP  - 319
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-134-0_20
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-134-0_20
ID  - Damoyi2023
ER  -