Implementation of online prelab activities in introductory organic chemistry

Over the last decades, the role of laboratory work in chemistry learning has shown a significant change. It is giving up its function as theoretical knowledge testing or simple experimental skills acquisition, to be integrated in methodologically coherent learning sequences. Taking into account the specificity of laboratory work concerning infrastructural and organizational issues, to achieve this goal requires the structuring activities introduction, such as the prelab tasks. These have turned out as very useful tools, whose communication new technologies. The aim of this paper is to show the process of implementation of a prelab activity model consisting of an audiovisual learning object which is linked to a multiple choice online test in an introductory organic chemistry course. The students' assessment has been clearly satisfactory, despite the work overload that it requires. Likewise, some results from this research show that the proposed prelab model may promote students' autonomy development and improve conceptual understanding, against the traditional "talk and chalk" way to laboratory work introduction.