[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Instructional labs: Improving traditions and new directions.] Physics instructional labs have long been an area of pedagogical innovation and educational research. While current stakeholders in instructional labs are undoubtedly aware of the day’s concerns, reform efforts, and empirical research within lab settings, likely less apparent are the deep-rooted connections today’s deliberations have with those from multiple educational eras across the last 200 years. To this end, this paper provides a historical analysis of instructional laboratories in undergraduate physics education in the United States, with the goal of elucidating recurring themes in educational reform and research aimed at improving these learning environments. This work aims to synthesize the recursive themes present in the instructional laboratory landscape while summarizing how new research and pedagogical trends can promote further growth in this important learning environment. Through this analysis, commonly recurring themes are identified related to the longitudinal criticism of confirmatory, “cookbook” lab structures, the community’s skepticism of instructional labs’ abilities to reinforce lecture content, and the possibility of technological and societal obstructions which may implicitly limit innovative ideas, pedagogy, and research. By bringing to light these latent recursive themes, this work hopes to work toward helping break the cycle of criticism and stifled innovation alongside recent positive movements in evidence-based reforms and promising empirical research into student learning and engagement in instructional labs.

中文翻译：

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物理教学实验室创新和研究的历史分析：反复出现的主题和未来方向

[本文是教学实验室重点集锦的一部分：改进传统和新方向。] 物理教学实验室长期以来一直是教学创新和教育研究的领域。虽然教学实验室当前的利益相关者无疑意识到了当今的担忧、改革努力和实验室环境中的实证研究，但今天的讨论与过去 200 年来多个教育时代的讨论之间的根深蒂固的联系可能不太明显。为此，本文对美国本科物理教育中的教学实验室进行了历史分析，旨在阐明旨在改善这些学习环境的教育改革和研究中反复出现的主题。这项工作旨在综合教学实验室环境中存在的递归主题，同时总结新的研究和教学趋势如何促进这一重要学习环境的进一步发展。通过这种分析，确定了常见的反复出现的主题，这些主题与对验证性“食谱”实验室结构的纵向批评、社区对教学实验室强化讲座内容的能力的怀疑以及可能隐含限制创新想法的技术和社会障碍的可能性有关。 、教育学和研究。通过揭示这些潜在的递归主题，这项工作希望能够打破批评和扼杀创新的循环，同时结合最近基于证据的改革的积极进展以及对学生学习和教学实验室参与的有希望的实证研究。