See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/234066312

Impact of biology laboratory courses on students' science performance and

views about laboratory courses in general: Innovative measurements and
analyses

Article  in  Journal of biological education · September 2012

DOI: 10.1080/00219266.2011.634017

CITATIONS READS

12 3,299

4 authors, including:

Silvia Wen-Yu Lee Yung-Chih Lai

National Changhua University of Education National Taiwan University
31 PUBLICATIONS   1,841 CITATIONS    33 PUBLICATIONS   235 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Yu-Teh Kirk Lin

California State University, Sacramento
33 PUBLICATIONS   471 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Vole Dispersal View project

Symmetry breaking events in feather evolution View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Yu-Teh Kirk Lin on 03 June 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

This article was downloaded by: [National Taiwan University], [Kirk Lin]
On: 14 November 2011, At: 02:40
Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer
House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Journal of Biological Education

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjbe20

Impact of biology laboratory courses on students’

science performance and views about laboratory
courses in general: innovative measurements and
analyses
a c b b c c
Silvia Wen-Yu Lee , Yung-Chih Lai , Hon-Tsen Alex Yu & Yu-Teh Kirk Lin
a
Graduate Institute of Science Education, National Changhua University of Education,
Chang-hua, Taiwan
b
Institute of Zoology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
c
Department of Life Sciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

Available online: 14 Nov 2011

To cite this article: Silvia Wen-Yu Lee, Yung-Chih Lai, Hon-Tsen Alex Yu & Yu-Teh Kirk Lin (2011): Impact of biology
laboratory courses on students’ science performance and views about laboratory courses in general: innovative
measurements and analyses, Journal of Biological Education, DOI:10.1080/00219266.2011.634017

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00219266.2011.634017

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic
reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to
anyone is expressly forbidden.

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents
will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses
should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions,
claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or
indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
 JOURNAL OF BIOLOGICAL EDUCATION, 2011, iFirst Article, 1–7 1

Research paper
Impact of biology laboratory courses
on students’ science performance
and views about laboratory courses
in general: innovative measurements
and analyses
Silvia Wen-Yu Lee a, Yung-Chih Lai b,c,
Downloaded by [National Taiwan University], [Kirk Lin] at 02:40 14 November 2011

Hon-Tsen Alex Yu b,c and Yu-Teh Kirk Lin c

a
Graduate Institute of Science Education, National Changhua University of Education, Chang-hua,
Taiwan; bInstitute of Zoology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; cDepartment of Life
Sciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

Despite the fact that some educational researchers believe that laboratory courses promote outcomes in
cognitive and affective domains in science learning, others have argued that laboratory courses are costly in rela-
tion to their value. Moreover, effective measurement of student learning in the laboratory is an area requiring
further investigation. The present study set out to examine learning outcomes by measuring students’ academic
performance and their skill in writing research proposals and investigated students’ views about laboratory
courses through interviews. Comparisons were made between students taking lectures only (control group) and
students enrolled in both lecture and laboratory courses (experimental group). A total of 78 undergraduate
students participated in the study. Stepwise discriminant analysis, analysis of covariance, and multidimensional
scaling were used to analyse the data. Results showed that students in the experimental group did not perform
as well as students in the control group in examination questions that required rote memorisation but they per-
formed better than their counterparts in classification of species and in essay writing. In addition, in terms of
research study design, proposals written by students in the experimental group were not only of higher quality
but also more consistent in quality than those written by students in the control group. Implications for
curriculum design and future research are described with respect to the innovative measurements and analytical
methods we used to evaluate laboratory learning outcomes, the role of laboratory courses in biology teaching,
and students’ learning styles.

Keywords: discriminant analysis; evaluation; laboratory; multidimensional scaling; vertebrate biology

Introduction
For the past several decades, educational researchers
have suggested that laboratory courses are beneficial
and make unique contributions to science education.
Science educators have designed laboratory activities
with the intention of promoting student learning in
cognitive and affective domains such as understanding
scientific concepts, interest and motivation, scientific
practical skills, scientific inquiry, and understanding
the nature of science (Hofstein and Lunetta 1982,
2004; Freedman 1997; Henderson et al. 2000). For
instance, Freedman (1997) showed that students who
experienced hands-on laboratory programmes
achieved higher scores on mid-term and final science
examinations than those who did not participate in
such courses. Despite promoting laboratory courses in
science curricula (eg National Science Teachers
Association recommendations), some educators were
concerned that laboratory courses were costly and of

Corresponding author: Yu-Teh Kirk Lin, Department of Life Sciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan.
Email: kirklin@ntu.edu.tw
Journal of Biological Education ISSN 0021–9266 print/ISSN 2157–6009 online Ó 2011 Society of Biology
http://www.tandfonline.com
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00219266.2011.634017
 2 S.W.-Y. LEE ET AL. _______________________________________________________________________________________________
limited value and felt that some of the same goals for
learning could be achieved more effectively through
other pedagogies or activities (Jenkins 2007). While
there is little direct evidence to support this position,
some researchers have argued that laboratory courses
have more potential advantages than is shown in
research (Hofstein and Lunetta 1982; Roth 1994).
A part of the aforementioned problems was attrib-
uted to another problem in science education – the
lack of effectively and efficiently assessing students’
learning in the laboratory environment. Some
researchers argued that achievement instruments were
not designed to measure the kinds of higher-level
skills that are emphasised in laboratory courses, such
as problem-solving, study design, hypothesis testing,
or interpretation of experimental results (Hofstein and
Downloaded by [National Taiwan University], [Kirk Lin] at 02:40 14 November 2011
Lunetta 1982, 2004; Ottander and Grelsson 2006).
Alternative measurements were suggested by some
researchers but are rare. For example, Hofstein et al.
(2005) assessed students’ abilities to ask questions and
concluded that students in inquiry-based laboratories
asked more and better questions than students in tra-
ditional laboratory courses. Harris et al. (2009) used
oral and written research summaries and interviews as
a means of assessment. They concluded that students
in laboratory courses outperformed their counterparts
when providing answers during interviews.
Because there is still a need for practitioners and
researchers to develop more effective measurements
of student learning in laboratory courses, the present
study examined learning outcomes in terms of aca-
demic achievements and practical skills. These are
more traditional measurements which take into
account student performance on examinations, and
an alternative measurement which assesses student
performance on research proposal writing. In addi-
tion, innovative analytical methods are also suggested
in the present study. Finally, the present study inves-
tigated students’ views of laboratory courses through
interviews. While providing students with more col-
laborative and inquiry-driven pedagogies in the labo-
ratory sessions, the present study compared students
who took lecture courses only (control group) with
students who enrolled in both lectures and laboratory
courses (experimental group). The following ques-
tions were investigated:
 To what extent did students in the experimen-
tal and control groups perform differently in
terms of overall academic marks and course
examinations?
Table 1. Number of participating students by academic year
Group Second year (n)
Experimental group 12
Control group 33
Total 45
 To what extent did students in the experimen-
tal and control groups perform differently in
writing research proposals?
 What were students’ views of laboratory
courses in general after taking this vertebrate
biology laboratory course in addition to the
course lecture?
Materials and methods
Participants
Participants were 78 undergraduate students who
enrolled in a vertebrate biology course at a university
in northern Taiwan. The majority of the students were
second- and third-year college students, but there
were also a few seniors (Table 1). The average age of
the students was 20.5 years. Because there was an
enrolment limit for the laboratory course, only 22 of
the 78 students were able to enrol in both the lecture
and lab. This was the experimental group. Fifty-six
students enrolled in the lecture only and formed the
control group. Approximately 64% (n = 14) of students
in the experimental group and 63% (n = 35) of students
in the control group were male.
Research design
The vertebrate biology laboratory curriculum used in
the present study was designed with an infusion of
social constructivism and inquiry-driven pedagogies,
such as team learning, peer instruction, active investi-
gation of related topics, concept-mapping, and prob-
lem-solving. Students were required to conduct
observations, gather essential data, and come up with
interpretations of data to reach conclusions. In some
sessions they needed to decide what questions to
investigate or how to investigate the problems
presented. Students were also asked to reflect on
their learning through concept-mapping or report-
writing. Faculty and teaching assistants were merely
facilitators in the laboratory. The overall purpose of
re-designing the laboratory curriculum was to
encourage learners’ active knowledge construction
and active engagement during learning. For example,
students were asked to investigate problems on their
own, write in-depth reports, and teach peers in the
group about their findings. During the semester, in
addition to working in the laboratory, students also
participated in a three-day field investigation at a
nature reserve and a one-day field trip to the zoo.
Third year (n) Fourth year (n) Total (n)
7 3 22
22 1 56
29 4 78
 ____________________________________________________________________________ RESEARCH PAPER
Data collection
Three different sets of data were used to evaluate the
contribution of laboratory courses in the present
study – students’ academic achievements, student
research proposals, and student interviews.
Academic achievement data
Data for academic achievement included students’
mid-term and final examination scores for the ver-
tebrate biology course, and final grades for the
course. Students in both the control and the experi-
mental groups took the same mid-term and final
examinations. There were seven essay questions and
one question where they were asked to define a
Downloaded by [National Taiwan University], [Kirk Lin] at 02:40 14 November 2011
given term on the mid-term exam. For example,
one essay question asked: ‘Please describe the func-
tion of pharyngeal slits in tunicates, lancelets, and
mammals’. The final examination included five sec-
tions: multiple-choice questions, fill-in-the-blank
questions, two types of matching questions, and
essay questions. For example, one fill-in-the-blank
question asked: ‘The structure birds use to reduce
turbulence and maintain air flow over their upper
wing surface is called __________’. The two types
of matching questions included matching a taxo-
nomic order to its description and matching
Chinese and English taxonomic orders. Also,
students’ grade point averages (GPA) from the three
previous terms (ie autumn 2006, spring 2007 and
autumn 2007) were collected as baseline data.
Research proposal writing
As a requirement of the course, each student wrote a
research plan for a study in vertebrate biology. The
instructor gave a brief set of instructions to both
groups of students regarding how to design research
and write proposals. No additional instruction or
information was given to students in the laboratory
course. A coding rubric was created by three experts
in vertebrate biology to judge the quality of the pro-
posals. The coding rubric included 15 evaluation cri-
teria: whether motivation for the research question
was stated; whether the research question was rele-
vant to vertebrate biology; clarity of the research
question; whether a multi-part research question was
asked; whether the multi-part research question had a
focused theme; whether hypotheses were stated;
whether methods were consistent with the research
question asked; viability of the proposed methods;
whether the methods were focused; method thor-
oughness; sampling method clarity; overall practicality
of the methods; whether expected results of the pro-
posed research were stated; whether references were
listed; and overall impression of the proposal. Each
proposal was assigned randomly to two of the three
experts in a blind review process. The three experts
3
included one professor of zoology (the last author of
the present paper) and two teaching assistants in the
course (one is the second author of this paper). The
two teaching assistants were senior doctoral students
in the zoology graduate program. When there were
discrepancies in scoring of overall impression among
the two reviewers, the proposal was reviewed by the
third expert. For each proposal, the scores on each of
the 15 evaluation criteria were averaged before statis-
tical analyses were performed.
Group interview
Students in the experimental group were randomly
divided into three groups for group interviews on
the last day of the semester. Interview questions
included: reasons for taking the laboratory course,
their impression of the course, what they felt they
learned in the laboratory, and suggestions for future
laboratory courses. The first author, who is an inde-
pendent researcher from a different institute, con-
ducted the interviews. Each interview lasted
approximately 50 minutes and dialogues were then
transcribed verbatim. The interview results were par-
ticularly important as the researchers tried to under-
stand students’ views of the laboratory course and
identify factors that might contribute to any differ-
ences between the experimental and control groups.
Data analysis
We employed stepwise discriminant analysis to ana-
lyse the student achievement data and identify factors
that would discriminate between students who took
or did not take the laboratory course. We included
22 variables in the analysis: GPAs from three previous
semesters (autumn 2006, spring 2007 and autumn
2007), scores in eight blocks of questions on the mid-
term examination, scores on 10 blocks of questions in
the final examination, and scores assigned to the
research proposals. Twelve students had one or more
missing GPAs values. We used the class average to fill
in missing values. Because several pairs of variables
were significantly correlated with one another, we
used stepwise discriminant analysis to avoid the
multi-colinearity problem.
The results of the stepwise discriminant analysis
indicated that the experimental and control groups
differed in overall academic performance during pre-
vious semesters (see the Results section). Because
students’ academic backgrounds could influence their
performance in the vertebrate biology course, we
used one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to
compare the final grades in our vertebrate biology
course between the two groups. The two groups
were treated as a fixed factor and GPA in the
autumn semester of 2006 was used as a covariate to
control for differences in students’ academic back-
grounds.
 4 S.W.-Y. LEE ET AL. _______________________________________________________________________________________________
The results of the stepwise discriminant analysis
also indicated that the two student groups may differ
in organisation or articulation abilities (see the
Results section). To address this question, we looked
further at their performance in proposal writing.
Multidimensional scaling (MDS) was employed to
determine if the two groups performed differently,
and how grading criteria affected the grades received
by the two groups.
To interpret the interview data, we first applied
an open coding technique to elicit emergent
themes. We then organised those themes into a
cognitive domain and an affective domain by adopt-
ing Bloom’s Taxonomy (Bloom and Krathwohl
1956). The cognitive domain included learning not
only factual knowledge (eg learning about an ani-
Downloaded by [National Taiwan University], [Kirk Lin] at 02:40 14 November 2011
mal), but also learning conceptual knowledge (eg
learning the animal classification system) and proce-
dural knowledge (eg setting up equipment). Affec-
tive domains were defined by Bloom and
Krathwohl (1956) as the way in which people deal
with things emotionally, including feelings, values,
appreciation, enthusiasms, motivations, and attitudes.
As shown in Table 2, seven sub-categories emerged
from our data for the cognitive domain and four
sub-categories emerged for the affective domain.
Triangulation was performed between results of stu-
dents’ performances and interview data to gain
insight into how students perceived the learning
experience in the laboratory and to aid interpreta-
tion of statistical results.
Results
Course achievement
The results of stepwise discriminant analysis yielded
a statistically significant discriminant function
(P < 0.001, Wilk’s Lambda = 0.689), which correctly
classified 83.1% of students into the experimental and
control groups. The discriminant function included
four variables: GPA in autumn 2006, scores on
Question 4 in the mid-term examination, scores
on Question D in the final examination, and scores
Table 2. Students’ views of learning in the laboratory in the cognitive and affective
domains
Cognitive domain
 Visualising what is learned in the lecture class
(through physical manipulation or observation)
 Learning to recognise animals
 Learning the animal classification system
 Learning to write reports
 Learning to set up equipments in the field
 Problem solving
 Learning through social interactions
on three short essay questions in the final examina-
tion (Table 3). The findings indicated that students
in the experimental group did worse than students in
the control group in terms of grades in autumn
2006. The grades of students in the experimental
group were also lower than those in the control
group in spring 2007 and autumn 2007, though this
difference was not statistically significant. Thus, in
general, students who took the vertebrate biology
laboratory had not performed as well academically in
previous semesters when compared with students
who took the lecture course alone.
Question 4 on the mid-term exam assessed the
ability to correctly define vertebrate biology termi-
nology. Students who took vertebrate biology lab-
oratory performed worse than those taking the
lecture only on this set of questions. Conversely,
those taking the laboratory course performed better
on Questions D and E – Part 1 on the final
exam. Question D assessed the ability to correctly
match classification names in Chinese and English.
Question E – Part 1 included three essay questions
asking for explanations of the ‘dynamic soaring of
birds’, ‘the counter-current mechanism’, and ‘major
advantages of group formation’. The discrimination
between the two groups of students in terms of
GPA and Question 4 suggests that students who
took the laboratory course were not good at rote
memorisation. Thus, they tended to perform less
satisfactorily when defining terms, and in biology
courses as a whole. However, in the vertebrate
biology laboratory, those students participated in
several sessions that involved classification terms, as
well as discussion sessions that allowed them to
articulate the relationships between various struc-
tures and functions. Those laboratory exercises may
have contributed to their higher scores on ques-
tions D and E, the matching and essay questions,
respectively.
One-way ANCOVA found no significant differ-
ence in final grades between the experimental and
control groups (F1,62 = 0.116; P = 0.734) in the ver-
tebrate biology course.
Affective domain
 Field trips are exciting and fun
 Field biology ecology is interesting
 Designing a good experiment is difficult and complicated
 Conducting research in the field is difficult
 ____________________________________________________________________________ RESEARCH PAPER
Table 3. Standardised canonical discriminant function coefficients determined by a
stepwise discriminant analysis
Variable
Grade point average in autumn 2006
Scores on Question 4 in the mid-term examination
Scores on Question D in the final examination
Final exam Question E Part 1
Downloaded by [National Taiwan University], [Kirk Lin] at 02:40 14 November 2011
Figure 1. Variables attributed to Dimension 1 and Dimension 2 in multidimenational scaling
analysis assessing students’ performance on proposal writing
Proposal writing
A two-dimensional model resulted from the MDS
analysis (Figure 1) explained 92.6% of total variation.
Dimension 1 was defined by four grading criteria:
clarity of the research question; overall practicality of
the methods; viability of methods; and overall
impression of the proposal. These criteria suggest that
the first dimension represents ‘overall quality of the
report’. Proposals that received high scores in these
four areas also had high overall marks.
The second dimension included three attributes:
whether a multi-part research question was asked;
whether the research question(s) had a focused
theme; and whether the methods proposed were
consistent with the research question asked. These
criteria represent ‘the proposed research question’. In
addition, the multi-part question variable was posi-
tively correlated with the question focus variable
(r = 0.765, P < 0.001), while the multi-part question
variable was negatively correlated with the question
method consistency variable (r = –0.224, P = 0.027).
These results indicate that students who created
multi-part research questions were able to focus their
questions on a theme, yet they had difficulty propos-
ing methods that would adequately address the ques-
tions they posed.
Although the experimental and control groups
overlapped extensively in two-dimensional space,
5
Coefficient
0.857
0.544
0.930
0.509
students in the experimental group had statistically
significantly higher mean values (0.44 and –0.17 for
experimental and control group, respectively;
t = –2.639, P = 0.01) and significantly lower variances
(0.32 and 2.11 for experimental and control group,
respectively; Levene’s test for equality of variances,
F1,72 = 10.87, P = 0.002) for grades received in pro-
posal writing than students in the control group.
These results suggest that proposals produced by the
experimental group were not only of higher quality
but also of greater consistency than those submitted
by the control group.
Students’ views on learning in the
laboratory
The cognitive domains
When we asked students why they wanted to take
the laboratory course in addition to the lecture class,
the most common answer was that they felt the need
to visualise what they learned in the lecture through
physical manipulation and observation. Students in
all three interview groups said that knowledge
learned from lectures or textbooks alone was ‘vague’
or ‘abstract’ to them. Students also stated that in the
laboratories they learned to recognise animals
(through visual characteristics or sound), learned the
animal classification system through classifying the
 6 S.W.-Y. LEE ET AL. _______________________________________________________________________________________________
specimens, learned to set up equipment and learned
to write reports.
Students also viewed the laboratory experience as
an opportunity for problem-solving. During some
laboratory sessions, students were asked to complete
tasks with limited direction from the instructors.
When they were given a chance in the laboratory to
solve problems, they felt they were able to develop
an in-depth understanding of the problem presented.
Students also found interactions with other students,
teaching assistants, and/or professors an essential part
of that process. As one student stated: ‘You learned
from discussing with fellow students in the lab. You
don’t get that kind of opportunity in a lecture class’.
Downloaded by [National Taiwan University], [Kirk Lin] at 02:40 14 November 2011
The affective domains
Students found experiences in the laboratory exciting
and interesting. The majority of interviewed students
stated that the most engaging and impressive part of
the laboratory course was the field trip. Several stu-
dents enthusiastically expressed a new-found interest
in learning biology. One student shared during the
interview that he used to prefer molecular biology
and doing experiments in the laboratory, but never
thought vertebrate biology and fieldwork could be
so interesting. Another student asserted that he was
seriously considering becoming more involved in
ecological research in the future, and stated that
‘sampling’ was no longer just a statistical term but
something with real meaning to him after he gained
field experience during the course.
After participating in the laboratory course, stu-
dents also learned that designing research studies or
conducting experiments is difficult: ‘Ecological
experiments are more difficult than they seem to
be!’. Students realised that executing a research pro-
ject is more difficult than simply knowing how to
perform the research methods. Students also felt that
going into the field and actually setting up equip-
ment put everything into perspective. For example,
several students mentioned that they started to pay
more attention to how to quantify data after they
had performed observations in the field. One student
realised that field observation was more time-con-
suming than he thought and conducting a large-scale
research project required more effort than he had
imagined. These newly gained insights into science
investigation probably reflect a more realistic view of
scientists’ work.
Discussion and educational impli-
cations
Results of the present study support findings from
previous studies that laboratory courses can have a
positive impact on students’ achievement in science
(Secker and Lissitz 1999). The unique contribution
of the present study is that it further illustrates the
types of examination questions that differentiated
performance between the control group (lecture
only) and the experimental group (lecture and labo-
ratory). In other words, the impact of laboratory
courses may be evident from answers to examination
questions even when it is not evident in final grades
or exam scores. In addition, laboratory experiences,
including experience in the field, may improve
students’ abilities to design research studies. For
instance, students indicated in the interviews that the
opportunity to actually set up equipment in the field
helped them to think more realistically about
research methodology. The laboratory course seemed
to introduce successfully practical skills to students as
well – not only laboratory techniques, but also better
study design skills and writing skills.
Although the present study did not set out to
investigate different styles of learning between
students who took the laboratory course and students
who took the lecture only, some of the results we
obtained might be attributable to different learning
styles between the two groups. Students who chose
to take the laboratory course did worse on examina-
tion questions that required rote memorisation but
did better on questions relating to classification, on
essay questions and on proposal writing. One poten-
tial explanation is that the hands-on and inquiry type
of activities in the laboratory and during the field trip
better match those students’ learning styles, thus,
resulting in better performance; ie they probably
learned better through those activities. Nevertheless,
although students who took the laboratory course
had lower academic achievement to begin with, their
final grades in the vertebrate biology course were at
least as good, if not better, than those who took the
lecture course only.
Finally, while there is a decline in the number of
science laboratory courses being offered in some
other parts of the world (Smith 2004; Lock 2010),
the present study shows the positive effects of such
courses on students’ views of science. The laboratory
sessions generated student interest in, and motivated
students to learn, vertebrate biology, especially
students who were not interested in this subject ini-
tially. In addition, the laboratory sessions broadened
students’ understanding of the nature and reality of
field biology. Thus, it is imperative for biology
educators to include field investigations in their cur-
ricula to promote student understanding of scientific
practices (Bowen and Roth 2007).
Results of the present study provide the following
suggestions for teaching biology and doing research
in biological education:
 Although measuring students’ academic
achievement is not new among science
researchers (Freedman 1997), the present
 ____________________________________________________________________________ RESEARCH PAPER
study suggests that educators and researchers
should measure the impact of laboratory
courses on student achievement at a finer
level; eg science concept or assessment type.
In addition, future studies should consider
using the two analytical methods we
employed, discriminant analysis and multiple
dimensional scaling, for further comparisons
between experimental and control groups.
 Alternative assignments such as proposal writing
can be effective methods for assessing practical
skills gained from inquiry-driven laboratories.
A detailed grading rubric is essential when
using this approach.
 Although laboratory courses are time-consum-
ing and may require additional teaching
Downloaded by [National Taiwan University], [Kirk Lin] at 02:40 14 November 2011
resources, educators should reconsider their
advantages. The present study showed positive
learning outcomes were potentially attributable
to students’ laboratory experiences.
 Providing laboratory courses at the university
level should not be considered solely from a
cost-effective standpoint. Elimination of labo-
ratory courses may put students with certain
learning styles at a disadvantage.
The qualitative results from the group interviews we
conducted provided insights into students’ views of
learning in the laboratory. However, these data have
limitations. In particular, we were not able to quan-
tify the interview results because they were done in
groups. In the future, researchers can use question-
naires or individual interviews to explore students’
views further.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Drs Ming-Zhang Du, Gao-Yi
Wu, Gwo-Chin Ma, and Mr Cheng-En Lee and
Wei-Wang Kuo, for their assistance in the vertebrate
biology lecture and laboratory courses. We deeply
appreciate the constructive comments given by two
View publication stats
7
anonymous reviewers that improved our manuscript
extensively. The present study was supported by the
National Science Council of Taiwan, under grant
numbers NSC99-2511-S-018-003-MY2 NSC100-
2628-S-018-001 MY3 to S.W.-Y. Lee, and a teaching
enhancement grant from National Taiwan University
to H.-T.A. Yu and Y.K. Lin.
References
Bloom, B.S., and D.R. Krathwohl. 1956. Taxonomy of educational objectives:
the classification of educational goals. Cognitive Domain Longmans, New
York: Handbook I.
Bowen, G.M., and W.-M. Roth. 2007. The practice of field ecology:
Insights for science education. Research in Science Education 37:
171–87.
Freedman, M.P. 1997. Relationship among laboratory instruction attitude
toward science and achievement in science knowledge. Journal of Research
in Science Teaching 34, no. 4: 343–57.
Harris, M.A., R.F. Peck, S. Colton, J. Morris, E.C. Neto, and J. Kallio.
2009. A combination of hand-held models and computer imaging
programs helps students answer oral questions about molecular structure
and function: A controlled investigation of student learning. CBE-Life
Science Education 8: 29–43.
Henderson, D., D. Fisher, and B. Fraser. 2000. Interpersonal behavior
laboratory learning environments and student outcomes in senior biology
classes. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 37, no. 1: 26–43.
Hofstein, A., and V.N. Lunetta. 1982. The role of laboratory in science
teaching: Neglected aspects of research. Review of Educational Research 52,
no. 2: 201–17.
Hofstein, A., and V.N. Lunetta. 2004. The laboratory in science education:
Foundations for the twenty-first century. Science Education 88, no. 1:
28–54.
Hofstein, A., O. Navon, M. Kipnis, and R. Mamlok-Naaman. 2005.
Developing students’ ability to ask more and better questions resulting
from inquiry-type chemistry laboratories. Journal of Research in Science
Teaching 42, no. 7: 791–806.
Jenkins, E. 2007. What is the school science laboratory for? Journal of
Curriculum Studies 39, no. 6: 723–36.
Lock, R. 2010. Biology fieldwork in schools and colleges in the UK: An
analysis of empirical research from 1963 to 2009. Journal of Biological
Education 44, no. 2: 58–64.
Ottander, C., and G. Grelsson. 2006. Laboratory work: The teachers’
perspective. Journal of Biological Education 40, no. 3: 113–8.
Roth, W.-M. 1994. Experimenting in a constructivist high school physics
laboratory. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 31: 197–223.
Secker, C.E.V., and R.W. Lissitz. 1999. Estimating the impact of instruc-
tional practices on student achievement in science. Journal of Research in
Science Teaching 36, no. 10: 1110–26.
Smith, D. 2004. Issues and trends in higher education biology fieldwork.
Journal of Biological Education 39, no. 1: 6–10.