A Review of Laboratory Instruction Styles

Through a review of the literature, this paper asserts that four distinct styles of laboratory instruction have been utilized throughout the history of chemistry education: expository (traditional), inquiry, discovery, and problem-based. Although these instructional styles share many commonalities and oftentimes their labels are used interchangeably, each style is unique and can be distinguished from the others by a set of three descriptors: outcome, approach, and procedure.