The Role of the Laboratory in Science Teaching: Neglected Aspects of Research

Hofstein, Avi; Lunetta, Vincent N.

doi:10.3102/00346543052002201

Cited by 669 publications

(380 citation statements)

References 42 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

326

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Certainly, teaching scientific process is no easy task for teachers, and they have to simplify the process in order to present some of the ideas concerning scientific process to their students. Several empirical (e.g., [18]) and position articles (e.g., [26]) suggest, however, that an understanding of scientific processes should be an objective of practical work. We have defined this multifaceted category as ''developing an understanding of the nature of science and of the scientific process.…”

Section: Fostering Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, ''to learn to make hypotheses'' belonged to three main categories. Kirschner and Meester [5] describe the formulation of a hypothesis in a way that makes it is more closely related to a practical action, whereas Burmester [41] states that planning experiments in order to test hypotheses forms a part of scientific thinking [26]. On the other hand, AAPT [10] claims that hypotheses are a part of the process that produces empirical evidence, which, furthermore, is the basis for understanding how nature works and how laws and theories are formed.…”

Section: A First Research Questionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Preservice teachers’ objectives and their experience of practical work

Nivalainen

Asikainen

Hirvonen

2013

Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study explores third-year preservice physics teachers' (n ¼ 32) views concerning the objectives of practical work at school and university. Content analysis of their essays about practical work revealed not only the objectives of the practical work undertaken but also how they had experienced teaching as school and university students. The objectives most commonly referred to were related to the connections between theory and practice, motivation, understanding phenomena, learning how to observe, and learning how to report. In contrast, some objectives were recognized only rarely, which is an important issue for discussion as a future challenge. Preservice teachers' positive experiences of practical work resulted from the successful implementation of practical work. According to our findings, practical work can in many cases be regarded as successful, especially when the participants understand the objectives of the teaching. In contrast, negative experiences reflected failures or difficulties in implementation. We conclude by suggesting that preservice teachers should be offered opportunities to reflect on their previous experiences and to see and experience in practice the advantages of practical work.

show abstract

Section: Fostering Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A First Research Questionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preservice teachers’ objectives and their experience of practical work

Nivalainen

Asikainen

Hirvonen

2013

Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Consistency with the literature on laboratory teaching. A review of the literature was undertaken for the purpose of identifying dimensions that are considered important in the unique environment of the science laboratory class (Hofstein & Lunetta, 1982;Tobin, 1990). …”

Section: Initial Development Of the Sleimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although laboratory teaching is one of the hallmarks of education in the sciences (Hegarty, 1987;Hegarty-Hazel, 1990;Tobin, 1990), there are serious questions about whether the great expense of maintaining and staffing laboratories is really justified (Hofstein & Lunetta, 1982;Hodson, 1990;Walberg, 1991;Woolnough, 1991), and whether or not many of the aims of laboratory teaching could be pursued more effectively and at less cost in non-laboratory settings (Pickering, 1980). But, because research has not been comprehensive, we simply do not know enough about the effects of laboratory instruction upon student learning and attitudes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of the psychosocial environment of university science laboratory classrooms: a cross-national study

1992

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A strong tradition in educational research has involved several widely-used instruments assessing student or teacher perceptions of characteristics of actual or preferred classroom psychosocial environment. Existing instruments, however, are unsuitable for one of the most important settings in science teaching, namely, the science laboratory class. Consequently, the present research aimed to develop and validate a new instrument, the Science Laboratory Environment Inventory (SLEI), which is specifically suited to science laboratory environments at the higher education level. The SLEI assesses students' or teachers' perceptions of five dimensions of actual or preferred classroom environment, namely, Student Cohesiveness, Open-Endedness, Integration, Rule Clarity, and Material Environment. A distinctive feature of the design of the study was that the instrument was field tested and validated cross-nationally in six different countries, namely, the USA, Canada, Australia, England, Israel, and Nigeria. The total sample consisted of 1720 students in 71 university laboratory classes. Various item and factor analyses guided the evolution of a refined version, and attested to each SLEI scale's internal consistency reliability, discriminant validity, factorial validity, predictive validity (i.e., ability to predict student outcomes), and ability to differentiate between the perceptions of students in different classes. An important finding was that the SLEI is equally valid for use in its actual and preferred versions, and for the individual or the class mean as the unit of analysis. As well, separate within-country analyses confh-med the validity and usefulness of the SLEI in each of the six countries involved in the field testing. Overall, the study attested to the general advantages of employing cross-national designs in learning environment research.

show abstract

“…It should be acknowledged, however, that this is not necessarily the sole, or even primary, goal of all lab courses. The goals of lab courses have been highly debated and without consensus for many years [17][18][19]. There is suggestive evidence, however, that traditionally taught lab courses provide little added value for developing or improving content understanding beyond lectures or tutorials [18,[20][21][22].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining and contrasting the cognitive activities engaged in undergraduate research experiences and lab courses

Holmes

Wieman

2016

Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

While the positive outcomes of undergraduate research experiences (UREs) have been extensively categorized, the mechanisms for those outcomes are less understood. Through lightly structured focus group interviews, we have extracted the cognitive tasks that students identify as engaging in during their UREs. We also use their many comparative statements about their coursework, especially lab courses, to evaluate their experimental physics-related cognitive tasks in those environments. We find there are a number of cognitive tasks consistently encountered in physics UREs that are present in most experimental research. These are seldom encountered in lab or lecture courses, with some notable exceptions. Having time to reflect and fix or revise, and having a sense of autonomy, were both repeatedly cited as key enablers of the benefits of UREs. We also identify tasks encountered in actual experimental research that are not encountered in UREs. We use these findings to identify opportunities for better integration of the cognitive tasks in UREs and lab courses, as well as discussing the barriers that exist. This work responds to extensive calls for science education to better develop students' scientific skills and practices, as well as calls to expose more students to scientific research.

show abstract

The Role of the Laboratory in Science Teaching: Neglected Aspects of Research

Cited by 669 publications

References 42 publications

Preservice teachers’ objectives and their experience of practical work

Preservice teachers’ objectives and their experience of practical work

Assessment of the psychosocial environment of university science laboratory classrooms: a cross-national study

Examining and contrasting the cognitive activities engaged in undergraduate research experiences and lab courses

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About