The importance of laboratory in chemistry courses is being reaffirmed in classrooms throughout the United States, and instructors are scrambling to find reasonable and valid ways of assessing student mastery of laboratory objectives. Traditional laboratory practices have all but disappeared in chemistry, although they live on in some science disciplines. The time, effort, equipment, and space required to set up laboratory practices dissuade most instructors from using them, even though the appropriateness of the lab practical is unquestioned. The Examinations Institute has, for some time, felt that laboratory assessment using small-scale techniques would enable teachers to increase their emphasis on the assessment of laboratory knowledge. During the spring semester of 1994, Bob Silberman from SUNY--Cortland spent a sabbatical leave at the Examinations Institute working on small-scale laboratory assessment for introductory chemistry courses. As a result of his work, and that of several other individuals, we have been able to assemble a good collection of tasks that instructors should find both appropriate and useful. The laboratory assessment activities were field tested in several high schools and colleges during the 1994-95 school year, and individual tasks were further tested during the summer and fall of 1995. We hope that the result is of genuine usefulness to the chemical education community.

• Small-Scale Techniques (5 tasks)
• Density and Volume (6 tasks)
• Acids, Bases, and Titrations (9 tasks)
• Generation and Identification of Gases (4 tasks)
• Solutions and Chromatography (6 tasks)
• Reaction Rates (5 tasks)
• Qualitative Analysis (11 tasks)

Three sample tasks are included here to give you an idea of how they are expected to be used in assessment.

• A density example
• A titration example
• A reaction rates example

To order, consult the price list and obtain and order form from ACS Exams (414-229-5680 or 800-850-7297 or email at chmexams@uwm.edu)

The Exams Institute has been notified of an error in one of the appendices. It is one of the student activity instruction pages. We have corrected the error for those that order the book after 7/10/01. If you received your order prior to that date follow the link below for correction files.

Correction to the Small Scale Lab