Synopsis Laboratory Reports: Effects On Student Learning And Curricular Benefits

This study sought to identify the effects on student learning of a brief "synopsis format" laboratory report versus the lengthier "traditional format" laboratory report. 56 Iowa State University industrial technology students were randomized into one of two groups that were required to write five synopses followed by four traditional reports or vice-versa. Latin Square Design analysis revealed no difference in exam scores between students who wrote synopsis reports versus those who wrote traditional reports. Exit survey results revealed that students preferred the synopsis format and perceived that the synopsis format required them to think more deeply about the content. Introduction Many industrial technology programs incorporate both a lecture component and a laboratory (lab) component in order to help students increase their understanding of the curriculum. Felder and Peretti [1] said, "a basic tenet of learning theory is that people learn by doing, not by watching and listening. Engineering laboratory courses are consequently crucial to the learning and retention of engineering principles" (p. 1). Industrial technology accreditation requirements similarly emphasize the importance of laboratory experiences [2], 1 Graduate student, primary researcher, and author, Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering. 2 Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering. While some researchers [3, 4, 5] question the value of lab experiments, there is no doubt that the lab experiment is a commonly employed teaching tool in industrial technology. As Gillet, Latchman, Salzmann, and Crisalle, [6] stated, the purpose of laboratory experiments in industrial technology "is to motivate, illustrate, and enlighten the presentation of the subject matter addressed in the lecture" (p. 190). A written report of the experiment and its findings often follows the lab experiment in order to cause the student to reflect on, summarize, and quantify the laboratory experience. To learn by doing in the laboratory, followed by reflecting on that experience and writing about it in the form of a report, can only further enhance learning. Lederman [7] said "the assumption that students are likely to learn the nature of science through implicit instruction (i.e. performance of scientific inquiry with no reflection on the nature of the activity) should be called into question" (p. 928). A well-designed lab report asks a student to reflect on the activity, the reading (assuming the reading assignment has been done), and the lecture content, and synthesize these three into a new, succinct document. These are the goals of the synopsis lab report format. Traditional and Synopsis Laboratoiy Reports Traditional Laboratory Reports. The traditional lab report, for the purposes of this study, was defined as a report in which subjects may take as much space as they wish in order to report the information in Table 1. The traditional style of lab report is written chronologically, similar to other documents that have the purpose of reporting work. Doumont [8] said students "present the reason for the work in an introduction (the before), detail this work in a body (the during), and report its outcome in a conclusion (the after)" (p. 166). For the purposes of this study, subjects were required to separate the conclusion into two separate sections: the discussion and the conclusion. The discussion section was the place to discuss the experiment, the procedures, and the results, while the conclusion was a brief section that attempted to tie the experiment to the curricular content.