Laboratory research projects should be designed to help train scientific minds by enabling students to understand the process of inquiry and scientific rigour. In practice however they place huge demands on resources. In our department student numbers have increased substantially without any increase in research lab space. Projects are expensive but the budgets are small and they place huge demands on staff workloads. Most importantly students may not necessarily enjoy or appreciate the process of scientific inquiry or develop the key skills needed for research or employment. These problems are common to many universities (Cowie 2005a).
To tackle these issues I successfully introduced changes to our final-year laboratory project for biochemists in 2005: Students carry out laboratory research projects in pairs or groups of three and are assessed on the individual report and key research skills. The changes were designed to help students appreciate the process of scientific inquiry and develop transferable skills such as team-work problem-solving etc. with a minimal demand on resources. This 12-credit unit involving 200 study hours runs in Semester 2 (11 weeks) and is mandatory for all final year biochemists without placement experience and optional for those with placement experience (year 3/4).
