A Timesharing Computer Application to General Chemistry Laboratory Work A number of our general chemistry students have been encouraged or required to use a computer terminal as a calculator, via short stored pragrams specific to laboratory assignments. The results seemed fruitful enough in several senses to share with others having access to timesharing facilities. In outline, the student called up a program, and then, via a given rode, one of its subroutines appropriate to a given experiment. The subroutine instructed the student to enter experimental data, in a particular order and format, and then reparted to the student the final calculated answer consistent with the data, for each experimental m. The student then made his own calculations, attempting to match the computer's results. The student results, with all intermediate steps required to be shown, were handed in along with the computer output. The benefits were several. (1)Grading could be done quickly and with confidence that the reported result was consistent with dsta ohtained. The grader could quickly check a few key intermediate steps to he sure that the student legitimately duplicated the computer's efforts. (2) The student could determine, prior to submitting a report for grading, whether he in fact understood the calculations or had made arithmetic errors. Interest was high a t this point. Frequency of questions and requests for help in dsta treatment went up several hundred percent immediately and remained at a high level. (3) Those students who worked backwards from the computer answer, or who requested the program listing and ohtained the intermediate results by "playing computer" undoubtedly learned more than they expected to. (4) Students gained a rudimentary familiarity with some computing concepts in a more constructive way than by the usual gameplaying, while reducing sharply the incidence of loss of credit for painstaking laboratory work as a result of incorrect data treatment. For those not experienced in programming, some words of assurance are in order. In almost any programming language, writing of a program for the described purpose is a trivial chore. A good student programmer could do the job in a few (5-10) hours time, given a concise outline of what is desired. In our particular case, subroutines s~ecificto given experiments were often & brief as ten or so logic statements. Virtually zero time was spent instruct& students in computer concepts or programming. A handout consisting of a numbered set of instructions (less than one page) and one live demonstration run moved sufficient. Substantial student support for the program was evident. Of about 3W students queried, two-thirds responded, with 80% pjvmg general or enthusisatie approval. 16% expressing "diffirulty in use," and 1090 found the effort of little or no value. ~
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Richard C. Reiter Jeanne F. Budig Illinois State University Normal. 61761
Volume 51, Number 1, January 1974
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