Transparent Lab Report Templates Affect Scientific Success

Kimberly Ideus, Emporia State University

Ning Sui, North Carolina State University

Key Statement: Transparency in a lab report template and rubric enhances the scientific integrity for undergraduate biochemistry students in laboratory courses.

Keywords: Lab Report Template, Rubric, Hidden Curriculum

Background

Laboratory courses are a staple of undergraduate science programs. As students progress into the upper-level courses, it is assumed that they have a breadth of prerequisite knowledge on how to navigate the laboratory course, including completing a lab report. Students generally know that a lab report should include an introduction, methods, results, and discussion. However, less consistent is whether they know to or are expected to include an abstract, references, or title page. Different instructors have disparate expectations when it comes to completing these reports. This variability in student understanding of how to complete a lab report to adequately convey the results of an experiment contributes to the variability of the success of students in the laboratory courses. How well students know how to complete a lab report relies heavily on the feedback that previous instructors were willing to give to help students improve. If students received only an overall grade for a lab report with little or no feedback on its construction and contents, exactly how the lab report is created and what is should contain remains a piece of hidden curriculum (Almairi et al., 2021). Students have to simultaneously discover what is expected while trying to also learn the more challenging, actual scientific content and concepts of the laboratory course.

Relevance

To mitigate the hidden curriculum and make expectations for a great lab report abundantly clear, we created a lab report template along with a rubric to share with students in a 400-level biochemistry laboratory course. Students were being assessed within the lab courses, and the department was utilizing these data to determine if courses were meeting objectives related to knowledge and safety within the lab. In order to rely on these data year after year, it was imperative that a standard version of both the report and the rubric be utilized.

The Lab Report Template: Professional Reaction

Beginning with the lab report template, we created a document that clearly laid out the expectations of content and formatting that students could utilize for each lab that they were doing in the lab course. The goal was that standardizing the lab report template would help students understand what material is needed for the assignment within the course as well as what would be required if they were publishing scientific results within a journal (Hand & Prain, 2004). Drawing on our backgrounds in assessment in science education and biochemistry, we developed the template in the following manner. We started with a properly formatted title page. Next we added the abstract with guidelines on how students should write it so that it gives a snapshot view of the lab report. On the following page, the template included instructions for the introduction, methods and materials, results, discussion, and references.

Based on feedback from teaching assistants for the lab course, we ordered the writing of the sections as the following: (1) Methods and Materials, (2) Results, (3) Introduction, (4) Discussion, and (5) Abstract. We felt that it was important to help students understand the logical flow of writing the lab report template in conjunction with their understanding of the protocol, the results, and the conceptual and experimental theories related to the lab experiment. Within the instructions for each section were key items to include, questions to consider, and brief examples or explanations from specific labs. We included examples of an APA-formatted table and figure within the results section so that students could see a model of what they might choose to include for their own results sections. The last section in the template was References, which students often forget or improperly complete. We included resource links to well-known and established citation websites that would be helpful as students work to cite the literature that they reference.

Student Buy-In

Students piloted the template for several of their lab reports throughout the semester and gave feedback on how to improve it at the end of the semester. We hoped that the co-creation of the template would increase student buy-in and use. And some of the suggestions were immediately incorporated into the template to improve it. For example, one student recommended for the abstract section, “Mention somewhere in the explanation that this ‘mini-version’ of the lab report should have condensed information, and not just a restatement of what you previously wrote in the other sections.” Another valuable idea was, “Tell the students to include any modifications made to the lab protocol and provide specific notes on why these changes were necessary or beneficial.” Another critical addition occurred when one student mentioned that “a rubric would have been nice to include, too.” In response, the rubric was added to the end of the lab report template.

Assessment With Feedback

We did not stop with providing a template for students. We also aimed to “close the loop.” In an effort to improve the transparency of assessing lab reports while also streamlining the feedback process, we adapted an existing rubric for lab reports to fit the needs of our department and course (Cardon, n.d.). The rubric evaluates the abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, syntax, and synthesis of the lab report. Students can earn a rating of expert, proficient, apprentice, and novice, with stepwise feedback included under each level. By including the rubric in the lab report template, students have the opportunity to self-assess their work before submitting it to be graded by the instructor. Then, from an instructor's perspective, the rubric allows them to provide general feedback that minimizes assessment bias through the standard rubric form while also having the freedom and time to tailor specific feedback about a particular lab or for a unique student as learning needs are recognized (Feldman, 2018).

Next Steps

Future directions for the lab report template and rubric include utilizing it for an entire semester and across the department. This will allow us to get feedback from more instructors and establish a professional lab report norm with students who are Biochemistry majors. Another idea is to utilize OneNote (or a similar program) so that students can follow a specific template, professors can customize it to their preferences and the needs of each lab, and students can engage in giving peer feedback as the lab report is in progress.

Discussion Questions

1. What other hidden curriculum items do undergraduate students have to overcome, and how can instructors and faculty assist them in doing so?

2. Does providing a template limit student creativity? Why or why not?

3. How can a rubric be utilized for other common assessments to help prepare students for professional presentations (e.g., poster presentation or conference proposal)?

References

Almairi, S. O. A., Sajid, M. R., Azouz, R., Mohamed, R. R., Almairi, M., & Fadul, T. (2021) Students’ and faculty perspectives toward the role and value of the hidden curriculum in undergraduate medical education: A qualitative study from Saudi Arabia. Medical Science Educator, 31(2), 753–764. doi: 10.1007/s40670-021-01247-5

Cardon, J. (n.d.) Example 6 - Evaluation of Lab Reports. Cornell College. https://www.cornellcollege.edu/library/faculty/focusing-on-assignments/tools-for-assessment/evaluation-of-lab-reports.shtml

Feldman, J. (2018) Grading for equity: What it is, why it matters, and how it can transform schools and classrooms. Corwin Press.

Hand, B, & Prain, V. (2004). A research program on writing for learning in

science. In C. S. Wallace, B. B. Hand, & V. Prain (Eds.), Writing and learning in the science classroom (pp. 47–66). Springer.

About the Authors