Teaching Fundamental Skills in Microsoft Excel to First-Year Students in Quantitative Analysis

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• 作者：Samuel J. Rubin ; Binyomin Abrams
• 刊名：Journal of Chemical Education
• 出版年：2015
• 出版时间：November 10, 2015
• 年：2015
• 卷：92
• 期：11
• 页码：1840-1845
• 全文大小：278K
• ISSN：1938-1328

文摘

Despite their technological savvy, most students entering university lack the necessary computer skills to succeed in a quantitative analysis course, in which they are often expected to input, analyze, and plot results of experiments without any previous formal education in Microsoft Excel or similar programs. This lack of formal education results in increased anxiety, students spending large amounts of time using the process of 鈥渢rial and error鈥?to complete the assignments, and detracts from the students鈥?learning of the chemistry. Microsoft Excel tutorials that were previously introduced have either been not specific to chemistry, require multiple assignments throughout the semester to acquire the necessary skills, or are designed for deprecated versions of the software. In this work, we present an argument for implementing a chemistry-specific, version-agnostic spreadsheet interactive laboratory exercise that uses basic, general chemistry concepts to have students explore and learn the computer skills that are necessary to succeed in a quantitative analysis course. Student feedback data indicate that students felt that the interactive spreadsheet lab allowed them to develop skills that they identified as necessary for success in the course as well as for their future careers.