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Abstract
Despite the significant amount of time devoted to laboratory work in the secondary science curriculum, it seems that students achieve only minimal learning. There is evidence to suggest that this low level of learning is related to students' limited application of science processes in their laboratory work. In this paper we report on how teachers might work to improve their students' use of process in ways that will contribute to their learning.
Introduction
Why do we have laboratory work in science classes? What do we expect students to learn from it? Our experience from asking Year 10 and 11 students these questions is similar to that of others who have done this in the past - that many students do not have an answer to either question. Furthermore, most have difficulty nominating even a single specific experiment they have done from their three or four years of studying science at secondary school which has helped their understanding. Such responses are not encouraging for those of us who advocate the value of laboratory work in science classes. Yet, to some extent, these responses are not surprising because historically there have been a variety of different reasons suggested for the inclusion of laboratory work in the science curriculum, and sometimes these reasons have been inconsistent or contradictory.
A purpose which has often been argued in recent years is that laboratory work educates students about the "processes of science" (i.e., hypothesising, planning, observing, inferring, drawing conclusions). The implication in this purpose is that students will use these processes of science as a vehicle for improving their knowledge. However, the evidence is that this is not what generally happens, with most students showing little signs of learning from laboratory work (Tasker, 1981). One of the reasons is that how students use these processes is related to the science knowledge they already have (content) and the openendedness of a given laboratory activity. We have been exploring student learning in the laboratory, focusing particularly on the relationship between students' content knowledge and the ways in which they mentally engage with a laboratory activity.
In this paper we present a number of issues which have arisen through our exploration of laboratory work through an extended research project in which...