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RateMyProfessors.com (RMP) is the most popular commercial website to evaluate instructors, and houses a wealth of student-generated information in the form of ratings and reviews. This study investigated whether general chemistry students who use RMP were different from other students, and their reasons to use and contribute to the site. A pool of 398 students were surveyed. The survey gathered demographic information, patterns and frequency of use, and information to characterise participants in terms of their learning/grade orientation. Data analysis included descriptive and inferential statistics and the application of mixture models (latent class analysis and latent profile analysis). There were no significant differences between contributors and non-contributors in terms of gender, major, year status, grade point average, course load, previous chemistry grade and learning/grade orientation. Findings for this sample do not support the common assumption that students use RMP to shop for easy instructors. Instructor helpfulness, clarity and overall rating were reported as important aspects to visit the site. Findings agree with literature reports and support the use of RMP as supplemental data to inform assessment of instruction at the general chemistry programme level. Programmes in other disciplines can adapt the methods presented to assess the suitability of RMP data-sets for similar purposes.

Laboratory graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) play a prominent role in undergraduate chemistry education. Although the success of a laboratory program relies significantly on the performance of GTAs, only rarely have they been considered actual partners in instruction or have their experiences in the academic lab been investigated. This paper reports on an embedded multiple case study designed to investigate how chemistry graduate students in two independent and very different learning environments constructed their GTA self-image and what aspects contributed to this process. Participants in this study included 13 GTAs from an expository-based program and 11 GTAs from an inquiry-based program. Interviews, memos, training artifacts, laboratory manuals, and course syllabi were collected to generate case reports for each program. Findings suggest that GTAs' construction of their self-image is shaped through the interaction of several factors: prior experiences, training, beliefs about the nature of knowledge and about the nature of academic laboratory work, and involvement in the laboratory setting. Findings from this study encourage laboratory coordinators to reconsider GTA participation in instruction in a new and different light and, when applicable, to look at their training and support from a new angle. Instead of focusing exclusively on what and how to teach, lab coordinators may design training and support programs that also target the factors that influence construction of GTA self-image. A more fruitful experience is attainable for students and GTAs insofar as the graduate students develop a teaching assistant self-image consistent with the specific instructional objectives.

Commercial online instructor evaluations have gained traction in influencing students' decisions on professor and course selections at universities. RateMyProfessors.com (RMP) is the most popular of such evaluation tools and houses a wealth of information from the students' viewpoint. The purpose of this study was to determine whether RMP data could be used to analyze and inform general chemistry instruction at a particular institution. The entire RMP database for the general chemistry program was sampled to produce a subset of 60 random RMP entries from six instructors. Each entry was composed of ratings in several areas and open-ended comments. The quantitative RMP data were consistent with measures from the institutional Student Evaluation of Instruction forms corresponding to the same instructors. In addition, a survey investigating RMP use patterns demonstrated that general chemistry students who contributed to RMP were not significantly different from the rest of the cohort across seven academic and demographic comparison criteria. The RMP qualitative information was analyzed using an inductive approach from which seven categories emerged as important to students' learning environment. This analytical model allows for categorizing students' statements in a systematic and meaningful manner to extract valuable supplemental information usable for program evaluation. (Contains 4 tables and 2 figures.)

Most educators and scientists would agree that science laboratory instruction has the potential of developing science practices fundamental to achieving scientific literacy. However, there is scant evidence to support that this potential is realized, particularly in tertiary level education. This paper reports qualitative results from a sequential explanatory mixed methods study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of a college, cooperative, project-based General Chemistry Laboratory in promoting student learning. Quantitative findings showed that students in this programme increased their ability and metacognitive strategies in solving online ill-structured chemistry problems. For the current study, we used a phenomenological approach to investigate the essence of students' experiences in this learning environment. Eleven participants volunteered to take part in in-depth, open-ended interviews. Phenomenological data reduction, analysis and interpretation produced an outcome space composed of three dimensions (Affective Response, Understanding of the Learning Experience, and Strategic Response). The need to "take charge of learning" emerged as the interconnecting factor bringing cohesiveness to the experience. These findings are consistent with the previous quantitative report. Additionally, they support the notion that immersion in a lab environment appropriately designed to constantly challenge students to think through problems and figure out solutions does indeed promote metacognition and problem solving skills. Situating learning in this context facilitates meaningful self-discovery and internalization of strategies as opposed to externally introducing them. We believe that these findings contribute evidence of the relationship between experiences in the laboratory and student effective learning and can inform and guide curricular development. (Contains 2 figures and 1 table.)

Research in general chemistry laboratory instruction has rarely focused on the impact of the learning environment on the graduate teaching assistants (GTAs). We decided to investigate the effect that facilitating a well established cooperative problem-based chemistry laboratory has on GTAs' epistemological and metacognitive development, and how this may translate into their scientific professional growth. Thirteen new GTAs underwent a day and a half teaching training complemented by weekly staff meetings. They were interviewed after their first semester as GTAs, and the data collected were analyzed utilizing a phenomenological approach. Three dimensions that describe the experience lived by the participants emerged from the analysis: affective engagement, metacognitive engagement, and epistemological reflection. The last two offer a rich description of how the laboratory context promotes GTAs' metacognitive and epistemological development, whereas the former provides understanding about the motivation driving their intellectual engagement. Considering the role of metacognition in research, and that personal epistemology is strongly tied to identity development, and that it shapes expectations and ways of learning, it is our contention that appropriate teaching experiences may contribute to better prepare graduate students for their journey in becoming scientists and to embark on successful research. (Contains 1 table and 2 figures.)