The author replies to Stephens.

The manipulative and visual–motor skills that students may learn in a chemistry lab are not “valuable” enough to them to justify their time and effort. They have been learning such skills since babyhood, so the justification of a lab must specify what particular manipulative skills they will learn that are new to them, and consider how valuable they are. This has not been done, but the insistence on a lab for this objective requires it.

In considering the usefulness of computer simulations, it is necessary to specify the objectives. I asserted that they will teach “interpretation and design of experiment” (as will problem-oriented labs if skillfully taught) and quoted the published evidence. I quoted McKeachie’s review of the literature showing that labs do not teach scientific method nor improve scientific attitude and added my own assertion that they do not assist understanding of the chemistry of the universe. It is irrelevant that computer simulations will not or may not teach these objectives any better.

Chad Stephens’ observation that labs can spark enthusiasm for chemistry is contrary to McKeachie’s finding and to my own experience. Such a difference calls for further research, perhaps into what causes the different results under different teachers. However, students should not be encouraged to think of chemistry as an intellectual exercise in which a gifted teacher may spark an interest. It is better perceived as an essential basis for their disciplines. As such it has relevance quite different from anything we chemists are likely to think up for laboratory exercises or for research projects.

Stephens’ suggestion that acquiring the ability to follow instructions is part of the reason why professional schools require chemistry lab courses indicates that he has a greater understanding of the reasoning of such schools than I have been able to acquire. It would be useful to reveal the source of his information and to discuss it more fully.

He asks “how the teaching of one’s discipline…can be considered irrelevant”. Does his implication apply to the teaching of every discipline? I have never seen the relevance of the four years of Latin taught me in my adolescence by somebody whose discipline it was. To believe that one’s own discipline is relevant for an audience is self-serving unless supported by evidence.

See also two other letters (1, 2).