Laboratory Courses for Pre-Service Chemistry Teachers Between Acquisition of Skills and Didactic Double Decker

For their future profession, pre-service chemistry teachers need to acquire practical skills during their university studies. In this article, the development, use and evaluation of several laboratory courses that aim at the acquisition of experimental competencies are described and discussed. During their bachelor’s studies, students take laboratory courses in general, inorganic, organic and physical chemistry and a research internship. During their master’s studies, students take one laboratory course in organic chemistry. To evaluate these laboratory courses, quantitative and qualitative research approaches were used. As the results of those evaluations show, the students are content with the courses and rate them as relevant for their future profession. The courses often use methods and tools that pre-service chemistry teachers can also use in their future profession in schools; such methods and tools serve as a didactic double decker, which means that pre-service chemistry teachers use their experiences as a student later in schools as a teacher. To further develop the laboratory courses, this idea will continue to be considered.