Science Education Undergraduate Students’ Level of Laboratory Safety Awareness

Abstract

Science faculties simply don’t consider instruction in laboratory and chemical safety to be important enough to devote a whole course to the topic. This can be detrimental to the development of safety awareness among science students. Hence the need to investigate science education students’ laboratory safety awareness, since the society looks up to them to impart the secondary school students with right scientific knowledge, skills and attitude. This study employed the descriptive survey design, with the aim of determining the current level of laboratory safety awareness among science education undergraduate students of Lagos State University, Nigeria. Fifty second-year science education students in the second semester of their degree program participated voluntarily in this survey. A self- developed questionnaire titled “Science Laboratory Safety Awareness Test” (SLSAT) was used for data collection. Percentages, mean frequency and t-test statistics were used to answer the research questions. The findings of this study revealed that awareness was demonstrated in students’ responses to those questions relating to good/safe practices (96%), appropriate attire (80%) and emergency procedure (72%) by the students. However, the study revealed two important safety issues where student awareness was alarmingly lacking; clean-up of spills (38%) and recognition of laboratory signs/symbols (0%). The study also revealed that there is no significant difference in the level of safety awareness of both male and female students (t = .781, df = 48, p = .439). Based on the findings of this study, recommendations were made, among which are that science-based faculties and students should bear in mind that knowing and following safety practices are part of learning in science.