Design Experiments and Laboratory Approaches to Learning: Steps Toward Collaborative Exchange

Abstract

This contribution explores how the emerging goals, approaches, and methodologies of design experiments might be productively combined with methods of inquiry common in more traditional laboratory science and considers the potential benefits of such a dialectic. The authors hope to promote a constructive dialogue to help formulate an infrastructure for the science of education that synthesizes theoretical insights supported by a wide array of investigational methodologies (Posner & McCandliss, 1993).