Does consulting open online educational resources to prepare for laboratory learning affect students’ perception of their experimental self-efficacy and chemistry laboratory anxiety?
Abstract
Laboratory learning remains a pillar of analytical chemistry teaching, but students often arrive in the laboratory unprepared, especially being unaware of basic safety requirements or simple handling procedures. Consulting digital resources before the experimental sessions was reported to possibly improve their learning experience in the chemistry laboratory. Exploratory results suggested that it improves students’ experimental self-efficacy with subsequent anxiety reduction, but there is a need for further investigating this aspect. We conducted a semi-quantitative study focusing on these two interrelated constructs in the context of chemistry laboratory teaching. Six small cohorts were considered in several teaching contexts (undergraduate and graduate) across three institutions, and students were invited to consult the open online CHIMACTIV website. When learners consult targeted resources on this website before the experimental sessions, they perceive an increase of their self-efficacy and a reduction in their anxiety in the chemistry laboratory. For self-efficacy, a higher effect was observed on the “understanding concepts” dimension, followed by the dimension “sufficiency of resources“. For anxiety, a higher benefit was noted for the dimension “using equipment and procedures” followed by “collecting data”. Comparable results were obtained across the different cohorts. The correlation coefficients between dimensions confirm a positive and significant relationship: reductions in chemistry laboratory anxiety are associated with increases in experimental self-efficacy. The strongest correlation was observed between the anxiety dimension “using equipment and procedures” and the self-efficacy dimension “sufficiency of resources.” These results suggest that students perceive online resources, such as the CHIMACTIV website, as contributing to their chemistry learning, particularly in relation to their self-efficacy and anxiety in laboratory contexts.
Related
- Experimental assessment of efficiency degradation and corrosion behavior of centrifugal pumps under laboratory-controlled high-salinity conditions
- Combining physical models with dynamically acquired experimental information for the optimization of multicomponent NASICON fast ionic conductors in a self-driving laboratory
- Goggles On, Bagels Out: A Randomized Hazard Hunt in a Browser Replica of a Real Teaching Laboratory
- Bridging the Literature-to-Laboratory Gap with Language Models and Active Learning for Reaction Feasibility Prediction and Autonomous Exploration
- A sustainability-aware self-driving laboratory
BibTeX
@article{camel2026does,
title = {{Does consulting open online educational resources to prepare for laboratory learning affect students’ perception of their experimental self-efficacy and chemistry laboratory anxiety?}},
author = {Valérie Camel and Jonathan Piard and Isabelle Billault and Marie-Noëlle Maillard},
journal = {Chemistry Education. Research and Practice in Europe},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1039/d6rp00091f},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05841642v1},
note = {CC BY-NC},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Does consulting open online educational resources to prepare for laboratory learning affect students’ perception of their experimental self-efficacy and chemistry laboratory anxiety?
AU - Valérie Camel
AU - Jonathan Piard
AU - Isabelle Billault
AU - Marie-Noëlle Maillard
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/28
JO - Chemistry Education. Research and Practice in Europe
DO - 10.1039/d6rp00091f
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05841642v1
AB - Laboratory learning remains a pillar of analytical chemistry teaching, but students often arrive in the laboratory unprepared, especially being unaware of basic safety requirements or simple handling procedures. Consulting digital resources before the experimental sessions was reported to possibly improve their learning experience in the chemistry laboratory. Exploratory results suggested that it improves students’ experimental self-efficacy with subsequent anxiety reduction, but there is a need for further investigating this aspect. We conducted a semi-quantitative study focusing on these two interrelated constructs in the context of chemistry laboratory teaching. Six small cohorts were considered in several teaching contexts (undergraduate and graduate) across three institutions, and students were invited to consult the open online CHIMACTIV website. When learners consult targeted resources on this website before the experimental sessions, they perceive an increase of their self-efficacy and a reduction in their anxiety in the chemistry laboratory. For self-efficacy, a higher effect was observed on the “understanding concepts” dimension, followed by the dimension “sufficiency of resources“. For anxiety, a higher benefit was noted for the dimension “using equipment and procedures” followed by “collecting data”. Comparable results were obtained across the different cohorts. The correlation coefficients between dimensions confirm a positive and significant relationship: reductions in chemistry laboratory anxiety are associated with increases in experimental self-efficacy. The strongest correlation was observed between the anxiety dimension “using equipment and procedures” and the self-efficacy dimension “sufficiency of resources.” These results suggest that students perceive online resources, such as the CHIMACTIV website, as contributing to their chemistry learning, particularly in relation to their self-efficacy and anxiety in laboratory contexts.
SN - 1109-4028
ER -