Investigating chemistry students’ learning about the relationship between the temperature and the pressure of a gas using a microcomputer‐based laboratory (MBL): A word of caution

Abstract

Learning chemistry with understanding is a challenge. From a social constructivist position, we view students’ chemistry learning from experiments as involving the shared negotiation of meaning that uses experimental data to confirm or challenge their existing scientific theories. This study focuses on the practices related to the use of a microcomputer-based laboratory (MBL) in a high school chemistry course in which students were studying gases and kinetic theory. Given the widely accepted view that the use of such technology is a ‘cure-all’ for educational problems, student learning using this technology might be considered disappointing. We find that little or no higher-order thinking was employed as students engaged in using the MBL and that some alternative conceptions were still evident. It is necessary to consider the students’ and the teacher’s use of such technology in the experimental context if the promise of its use is to be realized.