**6. Conclusions**

the OEL did make the students to be more creative in solving the given problem, excite their HOTS and also increased their attainment toward lifelong learning. Other skills like teamwork and presentation skill were also seen to improve and in turn would provide the necessary skills for the students' survival in the ever-challenging working environment in industry.

**Figure 3.** Exit survey response of students on how effective OEL in strengthening students' laboratory problem-solving

**Table 9.** Analysis of exit survey response on effectiveness of OEL in strengthening laboratory problem-solving skills.

**Year Sample size, n Mean, μ Standard deviation, σ Mode and median** 48 3.50 ±0.30 3 (Average) 65 4.00 ±0.50 4 (Very effective) 75 4.08 ±0.59 4 (Very effective) 67 3.75 ±0.53 4 (Very effective)

32 Laboratory Unit Operations and Experimental Methods in Chemical Engineering

skills.

Reflecting through the OEL initiatives as compared to TL approach has shifted the norm of laboratory practices among the students. Given ample time to design their experimental work, the students learn the importance of coming to the laboratory prepared and developed the logic of experimental work. This initiative promotes intrinsic motivation of the students and creates a mind shift from passive laboratory user to an active participant. Knowing responsibly the hardwork required in OEL, prepares the students a real-life research project environment where delicate balance of compromise between the theoretical experimental setup that can be carried out in laboratory to the constraints of time, cost, and safety. Students are also compelled to learn independently from literature and sought guidance from their supervisor

and found to be involved in peer to peer learning as they tried to solve the problems.

Supervisors of the OEL project need to invest time to supervise the OEL groups as our experience shows that while few of the OEL groups tend to seek shortcuts and find the easiest way to complete the project, the reality is many of the OEL groups tend to choose the most exciting Analysis for the reflection activity showed that there are mixtures on the students' perception on OEL. Some of the students see the OEL initiatives did help them to have a deeper understanding on the fundamental concept of chemical engineering like mass transfer and heat transfer. On the other hand, there are a handful of students who perceive this OEL as a burden to them like creating their own experimental procedures. A higher percentage of the students agreed that OEL activities provide them better laboratory skills than TL. OEL initiatives nevertheless increase the experiential learning of the students as they equip and prepare them better in their research-based final-year project (FYP) and facing the real environment in industry.
