Investigators from Northern Kentucky University and California State University Fullerton are designing a series of integrated laboratory activities that scaffold students' development of cognitive skills to support conceptual understanding in chemistry. More specifically, the laboratory activities target cognitive skills specific to inquiry-based learning in the laboratory, and target the abilities of students to transform concepts between macroscopic, particulate and symbolic representations. The laboratory instructional materials focus on four concept domains in first-term general chemistry: physical and chemical change, stoichiometry, solutions, and gases. Laboratory activities are being developed using a Learning Continuum Framework which describes a developmental progression of cognitive and conceptual learning objectives scaffolded across the three inquiry approaches of structured, guided and open. The research studies relationships between cognitive skills and conceptual development in the first-term chemistry laboratory. A focus of the research will be on how students develop the capacity to interpret, develop and refine mental models that bridge between particulate and macroscopic level perspectives. The results of the research will provide practical guidance on the nature and degree of scaffolding necessary for development of cognitive skills and the nexus between conceptual learning and mental model development. Implementation of the laboratory activities is being studied at both higher education institutions in order to include students with diverse backgrounds, on the rationale that this increases generalizability and transferability of the study's findings. Replications of the laboratory activities are being sought and carried out at two- and four-year colleges across the U.S. Fully replicated laboratory activities are being shared on a free website, along with a blog reporting current research efforts, list of research questions and feedback points.
