# Value added or misattributed? A multi-institution study on the educational benefit of labs for reinforcing physics content

## TL;DR

This multi-institution study found that optional physics labs do not improve exam performance, prompting a reevaluation of their educational value and instructional design.

## Contribution

It provides empirical evidence that optional physics labs do not enhance content learning across diverse institutions and suggests alternative instructional approaches.

## Key findings

- No significant exam performance difference between students who took labs and those who did not.
- Results consistent across nine courses at three different institutions.
- Recommends reexamining the goals and design of physics lab courses.

## Abstract

Instructional labs are widely seen as a unique, albeit expensive, way to teach scientific content. We measured the effectiveness of introductory lab courses at achieving this educational goal across nine different lab courses at three very different institutions. These institutions and courses encompassed a broad range of student populations and instructional styles. The nine courses studied had two key things in common: the labs aimed to reinforce the content presented in lectures, and the labs were optional. By comparing the performance of students who did and did not take the labs (with careful normalization for selection effects), we found universally and precisely no added value to learning from taking the labs as measured by course exam performance. This work should motivate institutions and departments to reexamine the goals and conduct of their lab courses, given their resource-intensive nature. We show why these results make sense when looking at the comparative mental processes of students involved in research and instructional labs, and offer alternative goals and instructional approaches that would make lab courses more educationally valuable.