Published: June 10, 2011
Copyright r 2011 American Chemical Society andDivision of Chemical Education, Inc. 1340 dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed100152p | J. Chem. Educ. 2011, 88, 1340–1340
TECHNOLOGY REPORT
pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
A Cost-Effective Modular Method in GNU Octave To SimulateStudent-Unique Data and Evaluate Student AnalysisAlexey Teslja*
Department of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Science, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, New Jersey 07940,United States
bS Supporting Information
ABSTRACT: A cost-effective generalized pedagogic modular method was developed using GNUOctave to simulate experimentaldata unique to each student, perform computations on the data, and then evaluate each student’s work compared to the correctresults.
KEYWORDS: Upper-Division Undergraduate, Graduate Education/Research, Analytical Chemistry, Laboratory Instruction,Physical Chemistry, Computer-Based Learning, Problem Solving/Decision Making, Testing/Assessment, Instrumental Methods,Student-Centered Learning
Technology used in instrumental laboratories is continuallyevolving. To adapt to developing innovations, an instructor’s
objective is to devise and implement the most suitable pedagogicmethodology to introduce new concepts to students within thecontext of economic, national, and global demands. Pressed bythe steadfast rise in the cost of instrumentation and the rapiddraining of funds,1 the method presented here aims to complywith ensuing academic challenges in a cost-effective manner. Ageneralized approach was developed using GNUOctave2 to simulateexperimental data unique to each student, perform computations oneach data set, and then evaluate each student’s responses as comparedto the correct results. The idea for this particular approach wasinspired by the enthusiastic request of students to learn in greaterdepth computational operations occurring within the software ofvarious departmental instrumentation. This method targets to fulfillprimarily academic objectives, promote algorithm developmentfor problem solving,3 as well as meet economic challenges costeffectively by accessing software that is free of charge. The methoddesign is modular, so that an instructor can resourcefully incor-porate new algorithms or modify existing modules to expedientlyimplement specific themes and operations to target groups ofstudents within a student population of large disparity inscientific abilities and preparation. The modular design alsoextends the scope to instructors of physical, instrumental, oranalytical chemistry.
To illustrate, the instructor chooses modules relative to theassigned topic(s) for his or her class. Existingmodules can be used,or new custom-tailored modules developed. GNU Octave pro-cesses the modules to simulate a unique data set for each student.The students then perform computations on their unique dataset in accordance with the instructor’s directions. A spreadsheetprogram such as Microsoft Excel4 or Open Office5 is commonlyused by students. Each student returns his or her calculationresults to the instructor, and GNU Octave then compares thestudent’s responses to the correct answers to evaluate thestudent’s attempt.
’ASSOCIATED CONTENT
bS Supporting InformationA summary of this method; a step-by-step tutorial; GNU
Octave method script files and several module script files; andsample student Excel files. This material is available via the Inter-net at http://pubs.acs.org.
’AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author*E-mail: [email protected].
’REFERENCES
(1) Zare, R. N. A highly unoriginal idea. Anal. Chem. 2000, 72, 5A.(2) GNU Octave is copyrighted, but freely distributed at http://
www.octave.org (accessed May 2011).(3) Schrader, C. L. Using algorithms to teach problem solving.
J. Chem. Educ. 1987, 64, 518.(4) Preferred by students who anticipate using it in industry,
available at http://www.microsoft.com (accessed May 2011).(5) Available at no cost at http://www.openoffice.org (accessed
May 2011).