An Historical Perspective on Instrumentsand Experiments in Science Education

Peter Heering • Roland Wittje

Published online: 9 January 2011� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

This special issue of Science & Education deals with the history of instruments and

experiments in science teaching. The five papers highlight different aspects of this his-

torical development in Europe and North America from the late eighteenth to the early

twentieth century.

Experiments play a crucial role in science education. This statement appears too

uncontroversial to be debated. The significance of experiments is not limited to a particular

level of education; on the contrary, laboratory courses exist in all science faculties at the

university level. Experimenting and working with scientific instruments are generally

acknowledged to be an essential part in the formation of a scientist. Things are similar at

the school level, except for a different formal structure—there are usually no isolated

laboratory courses; experiments are simply part of classroom teaching. As science edu-

cation is an integral component of compulsory education and not merely professional

formalisation, science teachers are required to justify course methods and content. Con-

sequently, different reasons for conducting experiments in the process of school education

are to be found (and experiments fulfil different purposes in the educational process).

Among the reasons ascribed to experiments in education are motivation, encouragement,

support to the learning processes (for example, by allowing learners to question existing

preconceptions, or by enabling them to develop or establish new conceptual knowledge),

or to form an occasion to reflect about certain aspects of the nature of science.1

P. Heering (&)University of Flensburg, Flensburg, Germanye-mail: peter.heering@uni-flensburg.de

R. WittjeUniversity of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germanye-mail: Roland.Wittje@psk.uni-regensburg.de

1 In this respect, it is relevant to refer to the ‘‘consensus view of the nature of science objectives extractedfrom eight international science standards documents’’. Among these objectives, one finds that ‘‘[s]cientificknowledge relies heavily … on observation, experimental evidence, rational arguments, and skepticism’’(McComas, Clough and Almazroa 1998, p. 6). Consequently, the nature of science requires that experimentsbe part of education.

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From an educational perspective, the role of experiments has become a topic of research

with respect to the learning processes.2 This can be seen as the result of the tendency to

develop science education by assessing in more detail educational processes in the

classroom through empirical research. In this respect, it is not surprising that experi-

menting itself has become an issue of empirical studies. However, even though several

studies appear to indicate that science education through experiments is not successful per

se (Hofstein and Lunetta 2004; Tesch 2005), there is no general questioning of the need of

experiments in the process of science education.

Yet, if one looks back, one learns that this prominent and sometimes dominant role of

experiments in science education is by no means self-evident. At the school level, to give

just one example from the German-speaking context, experiments conducted by the stu-

dents themselves were generally implemented only at the beginning of the twentieth

century with the so-called Meraner-Beschlusse in 1905.3 A commission of the Gesellschaft

Deutscher Naturforscher und Arzte (Association of German Naturalists and Physicians)

pointed out that physics was no longer to be taught entirely through mathematics. Students

were required to make their own observations and conduct their own experiments.

Experiments were introduced in university teaching during the eighteenth century.

Teachers such as Georg Christoph Lichtenberg and Willem Jacob‘s Gravesande are fre-

quently characterized by their focus on using experiments in their teaching. Yet, pointing

this out as a characteristic for the individual and thus making it fairly unique for the

community also implies that, at least in the eighteenth century, experiments were not that

common in university teaching. Moreover, one can distinguish between demonstration

experiments in a lecture and student’s own experimental activity. With respect to the latter,

Liebig is frequently mentioned as the first to establish a systematic student laboratory

course (see, for example, Holmes 1989). These few references suffice as evidence of a long

and multifaceted history of the introduction of experiments in science education.

One might expect that experiments and their role in science teaching has been an issue

in the historiography of science, or for that matter science education. Many studies in the

history of science focus on the impact of a few scholars through their teaching—these

studies frequently use the term ‘school’ to characterise the group of scientists who were

educated either by or according to a particular researcher/lecturer (Geison and Holmes

1993; Stolz 1991). Furthermore, many studies from the philosophical and epistemological

perspectives on science stress the importance of the formation of a scientist for her or his

future research approaches, epistemological beliefs, etc. (Cohen and Schnelle 1986;

Hacking 1983).4 One might expect that both aspects should result in studies on the for-

mation of scientists through education, as well as on the role of experimental education in

this process.

If one tries to locate such studies, there is hardly anything to be found. The traditional

history of science focused mainly on the development of theories and gave little attention

to experimental practice. Experiments served mainly as a tool for theory confirmation. Yet,

even in these approaches, few cases are found that discuss the actual way in which

theoretical knowledge as well as procedures of knowledge production were communicated.

2 Relevant studies in this respect are Hodson (1993), Hofstein and Lunetta (2004), and Tesch (2005).3 For the modification of physics education and the particular focus on experimentation by students as aresult of this meeting see Wickihalter (1984, 118ff).4 The same is of course true in case of the field of science education. See, for example, Koponen andMantyla (2006), Matthews (1994), Aduriz-Bravo and Izquierdo-Aymerich (2009).

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In the last two decades, however, experiments and experimental practice became a

major concern for historians of science.5 In particular, Ian Hacking’s dictum ‘‘experi-

mentation has a life of its own’’ has been frequently referred to in this respect. However,

even though there is admittedly a life of its own in experimentation, this life appears to

come into being through spontaneous generation rather than a painstaking training process.

At least this image comes to one’s mind when one realises that despite all the emphasis

from epistemological discussions of knowledge production, neither the formation of

experimental standards nor the communication of these standards to novices in the sciences

have ever been an issue for historians of science. This desideratum is, however, not too

surprising if one acknowledges that there has been a ‘neglect of experiment’ in the history

of science and that there still is a ‘neglect of education’ [see also Kayser (2005)].

These deficits led us to organise a two-day symposium at the University of Regensburg

in April 2009 that was (not only with respect to its scheduling) closely related to the annual

conference of the Deutscher Verein zur Forderung des mathematischen und naturwis-

senschaftlichen Unterrichts (German Society for the Promotion of Mathematics and Sci-

ence Teaching, MNU), the largest German science and mathematics teachers’ association.

At this conference, 13 papers on the history of science education in general and experi-

mental education in particular were presented. Five of the papers presented at the sym-

posium are found in this special issue.6 These papers illustrate both the importance of such

an analysis, as well as the variety of topics that can be discussed in such a study.

Lissa Roberts’ paper is written from the historian’s perspective. In her case study, she

discusses the education of Dutch orphans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth

century. She demonstrates that economic and political aspects and contexts played an

important role in their education. In this respect, experimental physics as well as

mechanical engineering were relevant fields of education, and this education was by no

means purely theoretical. This is evident from the collections, some of which rivalled even

those of the universities. Roberts’ paper gives a strong indication that educational insti-

tutions and their underlying political and economic conditions deserve more attention.

The contribution of Per-Odd Eggen, Lise Kvittingen, Annette Lykknes, and Roland

Wittje can be placed at the educational end of the spectrum that is formed in this issue.

Their paper demonstrates that a seemingly simple experiment, the decomposition of water

by electricity, is far from being simple and self-evident, and that even one of the classical

experiments that is frequently found in textbooks forms a source of confusion, learning

opportunities, and questions that enrich science education.7

Paolo Brenni’s contribution offers another perspective on the field by discussing the

instrumental aspect of didactical experiments. In his overview, he demonstrates both the role

such an analysis can play with respect to individual instruments as well as the different

manners in which these instruments can be used in the educational process—starting with real

instruments and closing with graphical representations of these instruments in textbooks.

A more regional perspective on didactical instruments is developed by Josep Simon and

Mar Cuenca Lorente in their discussion of the development of Spanish secondary school

collections. They point out that these collections form part of a national heritage and need

5 Relevant contributions in this respect were Hacking (1983), Shapin and Schaffer (1985), Galison (1987),Gooding et al. (1989), and Buchwald (1995).6 We are indebted to Michael Matthews who generously offered us the opportunity to edit such a specialissue of Science & Education. Other papers from the symposium as well as some additional papers are foundin Heering and Wittje (2011).7 For a similar study in this respect see Chang (2010).

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preservation. At the same time, they demonstrate that these collections form a source for

research in the history of science. In doing so they demonstrate that the educational model

in Spain was influenced by established educational models from abroad.

Steven Turner addresses the North American educational system as well as the late

nineteenth century. Turner discusses the transformation from a lecture experiment

approach to a hands-on activities approach. His analysis focuses on a seemingly unspec-

tacular teaching device, the inclined plane. Through the analysis of textbooks as well as

official documents and reports, he develops a description of the aims to change the edu-

cational curriculum by implementing more student experiments, and the difficulties the

advocates of such a change faced. This paper also addresses issues related to the makers of

educational instruments, and the kind and quality of instruments manufactured. Even

though instrument makers have received some attention from historians in the last two

decades, these studies have mainly concentrated either on the interaction between instru-

ment makers and research activities, or the internal dynamics of the instrument trade.8

This special issue can only offer a partial and episodic image of the complex and diverse

ways in which experimental science education can be analysed and understood in its

historical perspective. Yet, the features that appear in the papers, namely the political

purpose of education, the ways of transforming educational systems, the role of economic

aspects as well as the question who manufactures instruments, and the meaning these

instruments had as a teaching tool or as a source for a historical analysis are central to this

particular field. However, these few case studies can be taken as an indication that this is a

rich area in which historians of science and educators might find new ways of

collaborating.

References

Aduriz-Bravo, A., & Izquierdo-Aymerich, M. (2009). A research-informed instructional unit to teach thenature of science to pre-service science teachers. Science & Education, 18, 1177–1192.

Buchwald, J. Z. (Ed.). (1995). Scientific practice: Theories and stories of doing physics. Chicago andLondon: University of Chicago Press.

Bud, R., & Cozzens, S. E. (Eds.). (1992). Invisible connections: Instruments, institutions, and science.Bellingham, Washington: SPIE Optical Engineering Press.

Bud, R., & Warner, D. J. (Eds.). (1998). Instruments of science: An historical encyclopedia. New York:Garland.

Chang, H. (2010). How historical experiments can improve scientific knowledge and science education: Thecases of boiling water and electrochemistry. Science & Education. doi:10.1007/s11191-010-9301-8.

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8 Examples for such studies are Bud and Warner (1998), Bud and Cozzens (1992), Hentschel (2008),Morrison-Low (2007), Shapin (1989) and Van Helden and Hankins (1994). Among the few papers that doemphasise the interaction between instrument making and teaching is S. Schaffer, ‘Machine Philosophy:Demonstration Devices Georgian Mechanics’, in Van Helden and Hankins (1994, pp. 157–82).

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