Chemistry Laboratory Safety Signs Awareness Among Undergraduate Students in Rivers State

Abstract

Chemistry laboratory instructions do not only provide students with practical experiences but also teaches students on hazardous materials/chemicals as well as laboratory safety signs so as to prevent or minimize harm in the laboratory. Consequently, the purpose of this research study was to investigate Rivers undergraduate students’ awareness level of safety signs in Chemistry laboratory. To this end, three research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted analytic descriptive survey design. A total of 60 year three undergraduate students studying Chemistry Education (B.Sc. Ed) and Pure Chemistry (B.Sc.) were randomly drawn from three universities namely; University of Port Harcourt (Uniport), Rivers State University (RSU) and Ignatius Ajuru University of Education (IAUE) with each university contributing 20 students. A well validated and researchers constructed test instrument, titled, Chemistry Laboratory Test on Safety Signs (CLTSS) which had an internal reliability index of 0.94 via Cronbach Alpha was used for data collection in the study. The relevant data collected were subjected to simple percentages, mean, standard deviation, t-test and analysis of variance (One-way ANOVA) as statistical tools. The results of the study revealed that majority of the students misunderstood the definition of chemical hazards. In addition, they experienced confusion in matching chemicals commonly found in Chemistry laboratory (i.e., sodium hydroxide) and the meaning of chemical safety sign. An indication that students’ awareness level of safety signs is low. A second finding of the study showed that there is a difference in the awareness level of safety signs between Chemistry Education (B.Sc. Ed) students and their pure Chemistry (B.Sc.) counterpart, however, the difference was not significant statistically. Also, the finding showed that the awareness levels of safety signs among undergraduate Chemistry students are not significantly dependent on institutional types. Based on the findings of the study and the fact that the findings from this study provide basic information for teaching and learning, it was recommended among others that, lecturers in the course of teaching should promote students’ awareness of the proper handling, storage and disposal of hazardous materials/chemicals vis-à-vis their safety signs.