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