In this paper, we review research on how students' interest in science changes through the primary to secondary school transition. In the literature, the findings generally show that primary students enjoy science but come to lose interest during secondary school. As this claim is based mainly on interview and questionnaire data, that is on secondary reports from students about their interest in science, these results are reexamined through our own extensive material from primary and secondary school on how interest is constituted through classroom discourse. Our results suggest the possibility that primary students do not lose their interest in science, but rather that an interest in science is never constituted. The overview indicates that studies relying on interviews and questionnaires make it difficult to ascertain what the actual object of interest is when students act in the science classroom.

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In-modem schooling, student activity and group work areemphasized as important vehiclesfor learning. Following the perspectivesformulated by Piaget and other constructivist thinkers, self-discovery by students of scientificprinciples is seen as a means for avoiding the pitfalls ascribed to teacher centered lecturing. Teacher explanation in this pedagogical philosophy is often seen as counterproductive to real learning. In the study reported, it is illustrated by means of an example from student group work in a physics laboratory how the understanding of basic principles of optics do not follow from mere observation and physical manipulation of a particular type of educational instrument; the optical bench. It is argued that the optical bench itself is a product of a specific theory of optics and that it embodies principles of understanding the world which are discursive in nature and which are not accessible to learners unless they are provided guidance. In the instance analyzed, students already in some sense had an understanding of the principles illustrated (e.g., that light can only go straight forward, that it cannot go through solid objects, etc.), but they failed to realize the significance of these observations, since they were not familiar with a theoretical position in which these observations called for an explanation. 'Seeing; also in the case of the optics laboratory, relies on the use of cultural tools that provide the observer with relevant contextualizations.

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