creating and maintaining the quiz system. Part of her time was spent learning Apple PILOT. T h e quiz system keeps a record of the student's name and score each time she tries a quiz. At the end of each trial she is toldher score and whetherbr not it is adequate for her to be admitted to lab. By giving the appropriate password a t the beginning of the quiz, instructors can access the accumulated student records sothat they can make sure that everyone in their lab sections has passed. Students who have not passed are sent back to the computer to try again. The results of evaluation questionnaires filled out by 160 students and 8 lahoratory instructors demonstrated the success of the quizzes and helped elucidate the reasons for their success. We found that the quizzes 1) helped students understand what they were trying to do in lab
hy forcing them to read the manual and reinforcing the ideas presented in the manual, 2) provided practice calculations and helped relate them to the lab . . work, 3) were fun (in part because they were Wellesley-specific),and 4) were comprehensible and easy to use. A major side benefit of creating the quizzes was that ambiguities in the format and language of our lab manual became annarent. causine us to rewrite most of it. Because the individual quizzes are directly tied to the manual, they are useful to other institutions onlv if thev also adont our exueriments.
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A Computer-based Pre-laboratory Quiz for Organic Chemistry Ronald Starkey' David Kieper2 College of Envimnrnental Sciences University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Green Bay, W I 54301 We have developed, and utilized during the 1980-81 and 1981-82 academic years, a computer-based pre-laboratory quiz (PLQ) for organic chemistry." Objectives The objective of the Pre-laboratory Quiz system is to help optimize each student's educational experience and safety in the lahoratory by assuring that students come to the laboratory sessions adequately prepared. We believe an adequate lahoratory preparation should improve a studentis understanding of and efficiency in performing the lab experiments and, in addition, increase lahoratory safety. Anxiety toward the laboratory should be reduced when students know they are adequately prepared before coming to the laboratory session. The objective of ensuring students are adequately prepared for laboratory experiments can he achieved by testing the studentsprior to the lab session and requiring a demonstrated competency level before the experiment can be performed. The computer-based quiz efficiently utilizes faculty and staff time and allows the student the freedom to be tested a t hisher convenience. The computer package we developed allows students to take the PLQ during the university's computer center hours, any day prior to each week's laboratory session.
System Format The PLQ format consists of five multiple choice questions dealing with the theory, methodology, and safety precautions of the experiment to be performed that week in the lahoratory. Each PLQ was designed to test the students' preparedness to undertake a particular lahoratory experiment. T h e package is written in Standard Fortran and used on the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay's medium size mainframe computer (a Xerox Siema 6 ) . Our choice of a mainframe comuuter. rather than a mTnicomputer, is based on the need for Eonsiderable text and data storape and t i ~ h securitv t of the - cauahilitv Computer package. The PLQ svstem utilizes an interactive mode and thus it can he used h i students with no prior computer experience. We desianed the svstem to be accessible only via the computers CRT (cathode ray tube) terminals so a i r i n h u t is not available to the students. Each PLQ, with the exception of the Laboratory Safety PLQ, consists of five multiple-choice questions. The five questions are chosen from five different categories. Each category contains from one to five available questions. When a student takes a particular PLQ helshe is presented with one question chosen a t random from the questions available in each category. The categories in a typical PLQ are 1) Theory of the Experiment; 2) Laboratory Methodology and Procedures; 3) Calculations; 4) Product Isolation and Identification; and 5) Lahoratory Safety and Precautions. For each of the five multiple-choice questions given, the student resnonds hv" kevine - " in the letter corresuondine to what hehhe believes is the correct answer. 1f there&nsek correct the computer retains the question display and also displays "CORRECT" and provides a "correct response comment." This comment is designed to reinforce the correct response or provide additional informationto the student. If the student's resuonse is incorrect. "INCORRECT is disulaved . . and an "incorrect response comment" is presented. Features of the system The auorouriate auiz must he successfullv comnleted orior to the s & k e k s admission to each laborat&y session. Astudent may take thePLQ as many times as is necessary to "pass" the quiz. Passing the quiz requires answering correctly all the questions presented. A student who has not passed the PLQ is not admitted to the lahoratory session. The successful completion of a PLQ is noted in the "STATUS" file as "completed." The "status" file printout is retrieved hv the lahoratorv instructor urior to each lahoratorv session. he "status" fileindicates forkach student in a section one of the following: "attempted", "not attempted", or "completed". A statistics file is also kept for each student and each question in the PLQ. The information available includes the terminal time and the number of attempts for each student. We limited the PLQs' to five categories in order to keep the terminal time for each student to a reasonable length. During the 1981-82 academic year, we found the average-number o j attempts necessary per student to pass a PLQ to he about three. 'l'hi, vorre:ponds 111 ,111 a t e r x c 11 rmillnl Irunllw1, rime u~idcrn ~ n niinut~..< e per stutlc~it. \ n auditio~ialfwtl.re i i rhc PI.0.i w " t c m n.t. I;lu~idu ~ f t d was a "mailbox". The mailbox is a means by which messages
Presentedat the i8ist National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Atlanta, GA, March, 1981. Associate Professor of Chemistry. Software Manaaer. University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Computer Services. Supported by a University of Wisconsin Undergraduate Teaching improvement Grant.
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Volume GO
Number 10 October 1983
897
can he presented to students on the CRT terminal as they begin taking a PLQ. The principal use thus far has been clarification of the experimental procedure, and definition of terms and symbols used ili each PLQ. Laboratory Safety PLO In addition to the weekly PLQ to test students' preparedness for the lah session. each student is reauired to Dass a PLQ hazards involved in an organic chemistry 1ahorato;y and knowledge of what to do in an emergency. Topics covered include location and use of safety equipment and what to do in an emergency. Not only does the Safety PLQ assure that students are aware of the general hazards and procedures in the lab, but it also provides a record that the student has been provlded this information. Evaluation The student receution of the PLQ's in oreanic chemistry laboratory was enthisiastic, despite the fact iiprohahly meant additional work on their Dart. In end-af-semester questionnaires, 38%of the students said the PLQ's were ver; helpful in preparing them for the lahoratory. An additional 52% indicated helpful or somewhat helpful. Sixty-seven percent of the students thought that the time required to take the PLQ's
898
Journal of Chemical Education
was "reasonable" to "very little". Several students indicated they felt more confident in the laboratory because they knew exactly what they were doing. They also said that, because of that confidence, they enjoyed the lahoratory experience. Other students reported they liked the system because it allowed them to attemot the PLQ as manv times as necessarv to "pass". 1t probably contrib;ted to abetter learning environment for the lahoratory material because it allowed repeated attempts and because the PLQ results would not he used in grading. The PLQ's provided a non-threatening evaluation procedure. Our exoerience indicates aminimum of two CRT terminals are requked to serve the needs of 40 organic laboratory st"dents.5 We have found the PLQ svstem is valuable in enhancing the lahoratory experience for organic chemistry students. Additional information regarding the PLQ system may be obtained by writing the authors.
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A different aooroach to comouter-aenerated Safetv Quizzes for . an inlroa.cIoq cnem zlr, course was recent ) reporreo o) -evko\ J S., an0 -pendra T J CFLM Eu-r.. 59, 599 1982 Tnese CllT trrm n, ii l r t no1 rdsertea fcfe*c "s
