Agreement between student expectations, experiences and actual objectives of practicals in the natural sciences at the Open university of The Netherlands

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Abstract
The research reported on here is concerned with the (mis)conceptions of students with respect to the objectives which can be achieved by different types of practicals. Students taking part in four different Natural Science practicals were questioned prior to the practical as to the objectives they anticipated encountering. Three of the practicals were traditional laboratory practicals, one was an interactive videodisc practical. These same students were questioned subsequent to the completion of the practicals as to the objectives they felt they encountered. The expectations and experiences of the students were compared with the objectives that experts said were actually present in the practicals. The most important conclusion which can be drawn from this research is that expectations of students with respect to the objectives of what they are about to study unequivocally influence what they encounter, independent of what actually is present. Specifically the findings are: what is anticipated significantly influences what is encountered; not anticipating an objective leads to not encountering that objective, even when the objective is present in the material; anticipating an objective leads to encountering that objective even when it is not present; there are a number of objectives which can be considered ‘basic’ practical objectives which are present in all practicals studied regardless of type; there are objectives which appear to be unique to the different types of practicals. These results have far‐reaching ramifications for both educational research and educational design.

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