The general chemistry laboratory plays an important role in students understanding of chemistry. It is the basis for constructing lab reports, understanding basic concepts, and learning how to use the equipment. It gives students a way to learn hands on about chemistry. A new approach to the chemistry lab is implementing guided inquiry based labs instead of “cookbook” labs, where one follows step-by-step instructions. Guided inquiry labs are where students are proposed a problem and then asked to come up with the procedure for the experiment on their own. The goal of this research is to determine if there is a positive impact on students’ grades in lecture when a guided inquiry lab is implemented instead of a cookbook lab. The research will help determine other ways to teach chemistry so that students can better learn the material and retain the information.
