There is a large variety of goals instructors have for laboratory courses, with different courses focusing on different subsets of goals. An often implicit, but crucial, goal is to develop students' attitudes, views, and expectations about experimental physics to align with practicing experimental physicists. The assessment of laboratory courses…

The current dropout rate in physics studies in Germany is about 60%, with the majority of dropouts occurring in the first year. Consequently, the physics study entry phase poses a significant challenge for many students. Students' stress perceptions can provide more profound insights into the processes and challenges during that period. In a panel…

Non-formal learning settings like out-of-school labs provide students with insights into authentic learning situations. For example, in physics, students are engaged in experimenting as an authentic method. However, increasing the authenticity in experimentation can lead to overwhelming demands and hinder concept development and does not even need…

This case study examines students' perception, motivation, and learning gain of a teaching unit featuring wireless sensors as tools to collect scientific data in the classroom. Students analyze data using the corresponding cellphone app, communicate findings to the class, and learn about a changing environment. Wireless sensors are produced for…

Teacher education needs to combine training in content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). One important part of PCK in science education is knowledge about school science practical work to promote learning by scientific inquiry and about the nature of science. In Germany, practical seminars and lab sessions…

Experiments are an important way of working in the geography classroom. They promote and require numerous geographic skills. At the same time, experiments are only used comparatively rarely in geography lessons in Germany. In order to increase the frequency of experiments in the classroom and to better exploit their potential, GeoBoxes have been…

The primary objective of the current project was to convey authentic science to students in out-of-school student laboratories. High school students have diverse and partially wrong concepts of scientists' work. To convey more realistic concepts, we developed videos of scientists working on relevant and up to date scientific topics. These videos,…

Recently, medical students' scientific thinking skills have been identified as an important issue in medical education. Scientific thinking cannot be imparted in conventional lectures, but rather requires actively involving students. We modified a practical course in physiology. A study was designed to test whether the new course fosters…

Social media are a highly visible factor in the daily lives of our students. Why should teachers not take advantage of this and develop teaching and learning materials that use the designs found in such media to contextualise science learning? This article suggests some ideas for creating lab instructions using social media design as an innovative…

Experiments are essential for both doing science and learning science. The aim of the German youth science fair, "Jugend forscht," is to encourage scientific thinking and inquiry methods such as experimentation. Based on 57 interviews with participants of the competition, this study summarises students' conceptions and steps of learning…

The observation of living animals in school laboratories provides authentic views of biological research. Various studies stress the importance of primary experiences in biology classes. However, educational films may serve as an alternative in some cases. The aim of this study was to investigate student motivation before and after treatments,…

Presented is a case study on the implementation of open and inquiry-type experimentation in early German secondary chemistry education. The teaching strategy discussed follows the learning company approach. Originally adopted from vocational education, the learning company method is used to redirect lab-oriented classroom practice towards a more…

The learning outcome of a physics laboratory course for medical students was examined in an interdisciplinary field study and discussed for the electrical physiology ("Propagation of Excitation and Nerve Cells"). At the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich (LMU) at a time about 300 medicine students were assessed in two successive…

Previous studies on the impact of perceived threat on confirmatory information search (selective exposure) in the context of decision making have yielded mixed results. Some studies have suggested that confirmatory information search is reduced, yet others have found contradictory effects. The present series of 5 studies consistently found that…

These proceedings contain the papers of the 18th International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA 2021), held virtually, due to an exceptional situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, from October 13-15, 2021, and organized by the International Association for Development of the Information Society…