ABSTRACT:The laboratory has been given a central and distinctive role in science education, and science educators have suggested that rich benefits in learning accrue from using laboratory activities. Twenty years have been elapsed since we published a frequently cited, critical review of the research on the school science laboratory (Hofstein & Lunetta, Rev. Educ. Res. 52(2), 201 -217, 1982). Twenty years later, we are living in an era of dramatic new technology resources and new standards in science education in which learning by inquiry has been given renewed central status. Methodologies for research and assessment that have developed in the last 20 years can help researchers seeking to understand how science laboratory resources are used, how students' work in the laboratory is assessed, and how science laboratory activities can be used by teachers to enhance intended learning outcomes. In that context, we take another look at the school laboratory in the light of contemporary practices and scholarship. This analysis examines scholarship that has emerged in the past 20 years in the context of earlier scholarship, contemporary goals for science learning, current models of how students construct knowledge, and information about how teachers and students engage in science laboratory activities.

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The laboratory has been given a central and distinctive role in science education, and science educators have suggested that there are rich benefits in learning from using laboratory activities. At this time, however, some educators have begun to question seriously the effectiveness and the role of laboratory work, and the case for laboratory teaching is not as self-evident as it once seemed. This paper provides perspectives on these issues through a review of the history, goals, and research findings regarding the laboratory as a medium of instruction in introductory science teaching. The analysis of research culminates with suggestions for researchers who are working to clarify the role of the laboratory in science education.

This study deals with the educational effectiveness of field trips. The main purpose was to obtain insight concerning factors that might influence the ability of students to learn during a scientific field trip in a natural environment. The research was conducted in the context of a I-day geologic field trip by 296 students in Grades 9 through I 1 in high schools in Israel. The study combined qualitative and quantitative research methods. Data were collected from three different sources (student, teacher, and outside observer) in three stages (before, after, and during the field trip). Using observations and questionnaires we investigated: a) the nature of student learning during the field trip, b) student attitudes toward the field trip, and c) changes in student knowledge and attitudes after the field trip. Our findings suggest that the educational effectiveness of a field trip is controlled by two major factors: the field trip quality and the "Novelty space" (or Familiarity Index). The educational quality of a field trip is determined by its structure, learning materials, and teaching method, and the ability to direct learning to a concrete interaction with the environment. The novelty space consists of three prefield variables: cognitive, psychological, and geographic. The learning performance of students whose "Novelty Space" was reduced before the field trip was significantly higher than that of students whose "Novelty Space" had not been so reduced. Thus, the former group gained significantly higher achievement and attitude levels. It is suggested that a field trip should occur early in the concrete part of the curriculum, and should be preceded by a relatively short preparatory unit that focuses on increasing familiarity with the learning setting of the field trip, thereby limiting the "Novelty Space" factors.

This paper set emerged from an international symposium that aimed to shed light on issues associated with the enactment of inquiry both as means (i.e., inquiry as an instructional approach) and as ends (i.e., inquiry as a learning outcome) in precollege science classrooms. The symposium contributors were charged with providing perspectives from ABD-EL-KHALICK ET AL.their countries on the following major themes: (a) philosophical and practical conceptions of inquiry in the science curriculum; (b) images of the enactment of inquiry in the curriculum, curricular materials, classroom instruction, and assessment practices; and (c) factors and conditions, internal and external to the educational setting, which facilitate or impede inquiry-based science education. Another major theme that emerged from the symposium was related to the very conceptions of inquiry teaching. The individual contributions and synthesizing commentaries demonstrate that despite their situatedness and diversity, many themes and issues cut across the represented locales, and serve to show the significance and potential fruitfulness of any discourse regarding inquiry in science education that this paper set might, and we hope will, trigger in the near future.C