APCELL: Developing better ways of teaching in the laboratory

Abstract

The Australian Physical Chemistry Enhanced Laboratory Learning project was established to address deficiencies in Australian physical chemistry laboratory education. The project aims to pool the resources of over 30 universities to develop a protocol for developing and assuring the quality of laboratory teaching experiments. This protocol is based on ‘research-led teaching’ and is underpinned by education research literature. Because of its grounding in research, the project has demonstrated the potential to generate and support further research on teaching and student learning in laboratories. In this paper we describe the progress of the project to date and some of the research methodologies that have been employed.