1. Bengkel Pelaporan Hasil Penyelidikan Pendidikan Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Student Preparedness for Practical Classes by Sheila Shamuganathan

2. Introduction Laboratory classes are where science students acquire and practice key manipulative and process skill, while learning to move concepts from an abstract into a concrete setting. (OBrien & Cameron, 2008). Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness for PracticalClasses

3. However students may be at risk of information overload during a laboratory class as they try to cope with technical and manipulative task as well as master new concepts (Mester & Maskill, 1995; Pogaenik & Cigic, 2006). Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

4. One effective way to reduce cognitive load and to increase meaningful learning during laboratory classes (OBrien & Cameron, 2008) is through effective pre-laboratory preparation. Preparatory exercise take many forms, including short face-to-face tutorials with associated tests (Pogacnik & Cigic, 2006), or on-line work modules in which the practical task is carried out in a virtual environment (Schmid & Yeung, 2005). Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

5. To be effective, pre-laboratory preparation needs to be more than just an encouragement for students to read their manual before coming to class: pre-laboratory exercises must be designed as carefully as the practical manual itself (Johnstone & Al- Shuaili , 2006). Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

6. Kirk and Layman (1996) conducted research on improving student understanding in an introductory chemistry course. Of the students interviewed, they found 41% felt better prepared when they used a pre-laboratory guide for laboratory preparation. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

7. Barnes and Thornton (1998) conducted research on pre-laboratory effectiveness using both quantitative and qualitative methods. They found no significant correlation between performance and pre-laboratory questions and the laboratory reports or the mid semester exams. However, they found that students felt that using the pre- laboratory questions made writing the lab report easier. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness for Practical Classes

8. Students who complete pre -laboratory exercises feel better prepared and believes that these activities help them perform well during the investigation and on laboratory assignments (Kirk & Layman; Barnes & Thornton 1998). Moreover, there is some indication that pre laboratory may correlate with an increase in student performance on post laboratory assessment (Johnstone.et al,1998). Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness for Practical Classes

9. Laboratory work is an established part of courses in Matriculation for science courses in consonance with the National Education Philosophy, science education in Malaysia nurtures a science and technology culture by focusing on the development of individuals who are competitive ,dynamic robust and resilient and able to master scientific knowledge and technological competency. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

10. The practical sessions are aimed to ensure that the students are well equipped with the necessary scientific skills which encompass science process and manipulative skills. It is also argued that laboratory work in higher education cannot be seen in isolation. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness for Practical Classes

11. Greater importance is the need to see the hands on laboratory time as part of a wider process of learning. Together, these may enrich and enhance the whole laboratory experiences and enable it to contribute more effectively to the overall learning of students in chemistry. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness for PracticalClasses

12. Problem Statement Each steps of the procedure is carefully prescribed and students are expected to follow the procedure exactly. Usually, a little is left to the students own thought or ingenuity. This type of laboratory activity is often referred to as a recipe lab (Domain 1999). Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

13. Johnston (1997) reported that the laboratory is a place for information overloaded, which result in students having little brain space to process information and therefore they blindly follow the instruction and seldom interpret the observations or the result made during the experiment. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

14. The majority of the pre-laboratory instruction in the past has been in the form of a pre-laboratory lecture by the lecturer or the demonstrators. This system has two main disadvantages; students are not required to do anything in preparation for laboratory work. As a result, they are likely to come to the pre- laboratory class without having so much to read the laboratory manual to find out what they are going to do in the laboratory. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness for Practical Classes

15. However it is hoped that, having answered the pre-laboratory questions, students will come to the laboratory with a greater understanding than they do currently of not only the procedures they are about to carry out, but also the theoretical basis for the experiment. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

16. It is hoped that the pre-laboratory questions will be more effective than the lecture in getting to think about what they are going to be doing in the laboratory and why, which will make the laboratory sessions more useful in consolidating the concepts taught in the lectures. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness for PracticalClasses

17. Purpose of the Study The purpose of this study is to investigate how our chemistry students SK016 usually prepare for practical classes, and whether they felt well- prepared for practical classes after introduction of the pre laboratory exercise. As the study did not attempt to directly measure the impact on learning outcomes, instead we focused on how the availability of the pre labs affected students perceptions of their preparedness for practical classes. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

18. Research Question To investigate whether the pre laboratory exercise can enhance students Preparedness for Practical Class. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

19. Research Methodology All the students in this Matriculation programme Academic Year 2011/2012 (Module 1, Module 2 and Module 3) are needed to answer the pre laboratory question on line which is loaded into our on-line learning site the week before the relevant practical classes and the students are alerted to this during their lectures. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

20. There are nine practical conducted by the lecturer throughout semester 1 and eight pre labs exercise according to the topics are given to the students beforehand. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

21. This study involves 50 biological sciences students (Module 1) and 50 physical students (Module 2) using questionnaire as the instrument. The samples are selected randomly to undergo this survey. The sample are students of about 18 years old and have been selected to Matriculation Programme based on their academic results of Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness for SPM.Practical Classes

22. The students submit their laboratory report through the learning portal. The students are free to consult their lecturers or classmates for assistance in answering the pre- laboratory exercise both inside and out of class time. Students answers to the pre-laboratory exercise were graded by the laboratory lecturer and returned to the students at the beginning of the laboratory class. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

23. A set of model answers for the laboratory exercise were made available for the students to consult after they had handed their own answers. Answers to the pre-laboratory questions were discussed during the laboratory class Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

24. The questionnaires were distributed to the student at the end of the semester after the students had completed all the pre-laboratory exercise and experiments. The students were asked to respond to a series of statements by indicating how strongly they agree with the statement. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

25. A scale of 1 to 5 of Likert scale was presented for each item (1- strongly disagree, 5- strongly agree) for the students to indicate their response to Part A of the questionnaire. In the part B of the survey, students were asked to make written responses to nine questions regarding the use of pre-laboratory exercise as part of the laboratory program and assessment. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

26. The instrument on the questionnaire derived from a student survey used by a chemistry department (Bennett, 1994). The instrument was proof read by the chemistry lecturers before the questionnaires were distributed to the samples. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

27. Result and DiscussionQuestion 1 For the survey data, only 5 % of students reported that they did a substantial amount of preparation before entering the laboratory for practical classes for Experiment 1 as there were no pre-laboratory exercise were given by the lecturers (rated as 4 or 5 on a Likert scale) Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness for PracticalClasses

28. 35.6% of the class considered they did some preparation for class (rating 3 on the Likert scale), 59.4% reported doing little or no preparation (rating 2 or 1) Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness for PracticalClasses

29. The positive responses to item 2, 3 ,4 and 5 on the survey were particularly encouraging. It seems that the pre-laboratory questions did achieve their aim of encouraging the students to think through the laboratory procedure before coming to the laboratory. A majority of students agreed that completing the pre-laboratory questions made writing the laboratory report easier (Question 6). Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness for Practical Classes

30. Question 7 suggest a positive change in the students attitude towards laboratory work. This is the most significant result. The response to questions that dealt with the students writing their own procedures (Question 8 and 9) was fairly neutral. It does not seem from the survey that students objected to the idea , but considerable amount of nervousness was observed during the laboratory sessions. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness for PracticalClasses

31. Part B Question1 asked students whether they enjoyed doing laboratory work, 73.8% of biological students agreed that they enjoyed doing laboratory work compared to 82.5% of physical science student. 43.7% reported that they dont like doing laboratory work Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

32. The response to Question 2 , it was intended that the pre-laboratory exercise would take an average of one hour for the students, the survey shows that 46.0% of biological students and 72.5%.of physical science students finished their laboratory exercise within an hour. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

33. The overwhelming respond to question 3 was that doing pre laboratory questions did not increase the stress associated with laboratory work . On the contrary, many students commented that having answered pre-laboratory questions actually reduced the amount of stress in the laboratory. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

34. It was expected that the response to question 6 would be in favour of abandoning laboratory reports.. This was not the case. Very little explanation of this response was offered by students. Students response to question (7) again showed their fear of failure in the laboratory , as a major reason given for preferring pre-laboratory exercise over laboratory reports as a form of assessment was that the resulting grade was not affected by mistakes in the laboratory, and a major reason for not preferring pre-laboratory questions was that students had not yet understood the laboratory exercise (i.e would not get a good mark on the pre-laboratory exercise). Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness for Practical Classes

35. Analysis of responses to Question 8, which asked about the kinds of things that worry me the most showed that students greatest concern were: using my time efficiently (28 .8 % ) of total responses knowing what the main or important parts of the practical are (25.8%) knowing what to do next (24 .7%) understanding the information in the practical manual(20.7%). Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness for Practical Classes

36. Question 9 asked students to rate the usefulness of the pre-laboratory in helping them prepare for practical classes on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1- not at all, and 5- extremely useful. An overwhelming majority (84.5%) of the students rated the usefulness of the pre-laboratory highly: at 4 (38.1%) or 5 (42.9%). Only (6.7%) felt the pre- laboratory exercise were of little or no assistance. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness for Practical Classes

37. Conclusion The response from the students is that the pre- laboratory questions were a worthwhile exercise. Students came to their laboratory classes having done at least some preparation, which is a significant improvement from previous years. Most students agreed that pre-laboratory exercises were helpful to them in completing their laboratory work. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

38. This study has highlighted the effectiveness of pre-laboratory in improving the preparedness of the Penang Matriculation student SK016 for chemistry practical classes. The pre-laboratory exercises for effective pre-laboratory work that the Matriculation lecturers prepared actually helps the students to be active participants in the laboratory work in the laboratory. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

39. This study has highlighted the effectiveness of pre- laboratory in improving the preparedness of the Penang Matriculation student SK016 for chemistry practical classes. The pre-laboratory exercises for effective pre-laboratory work that the Matriculation lecturers prepared actually helps the students to be active participants in the laboratory work in the laboratory Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness for Practical Classes

40. The pre-laboratory exercise might be incorporated in the implementation of the pre laboratory exercise into chemistry lab curriculum. Tailoring the pre-laboratory exercise to the experiment module will be potential benefit to the students in the Matriculation College. Therefore, pre-laboratory exercise could be added to direct students attention to specific features of each experiment. Students would thus have the best of both approaches to preparing for SK016 Chemistry in the matriculation colleges. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness forPractical Classes

41. Reference Barnes, R. and Thornton, B. (1998), Preparing for Laboratory work. In Black, B. and Stanley, N.(Eds), Teaching and Learning in Changing Times, 28-32. Proceedings of the 7 th Annual Teaching Forum, The University of Western Australia, February 1998. Perth :UMA.Retrieved November 12 , 2011, http://lsn.curtain.edu.au/tlf/tlfl1998/barnes.html. Hodson, D. (1993) Re thinking old ways: towards a more critical approach to pratical work in school science, Studies in Science education 22 , 85-142 Johnstone, A. H & Al-Shuaili A. (2001). Learning in the laboratory: some thoughts from the literature. University Chemistry Education 5, 42-51. Meester M.A.M. & Maskill. R (1995) First year chemistry practicals at universities in England and Wales: organizational and teaching aspects. International Journal of science Education, 17, 705-719. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparedness for PracticalClasses

42. O Brien, G. & Cameron, M (2008) Pre laboratory activities to enhance the laboratory learning experience. UniServe Science Proceedings 2005, 80-85. Retrieved October 3, 2011 from http://science.uniserve.edu.au/pubs/procs/2008/index.html. Progacnik. L. & Cigic B (2006). How to motivate students to study before enter the lab. Journal of Chemical Education 83, 1091-1098. Kirk, Maria R,: Layman, John W. A Pre lab guide for General Chemistry : Improving Students Understanding of Chemical Concepts and Processes. Schmid, S & young, A. (2005). The influence of a pre-laboratory work module on student performance in the first year laboratory, Proceedings HERDSA Annual Conference 3-6 July 2005. Sydney Australia 471-479.Retrieved October 5, 2011 from http://conference.herdsa.org.au/2005/paper index.cfm for Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students PreparednessPractical Classes

43. Pre-laboratory Exercise Enhance Students Preparednessfor Practical Classes