All the activities will converge to elaborate a grid of criteria around which the effectiveness of labwork can be evaluated. Student's aptitudes and competencies promoted by different forms of labwork will be identified. Illustrative materials such as innovative educational sequences coming from different countries will be produced.

The work will concern labwork in Physics, Chemistry and Biology at the level of upper secondary school and the two first years of Undergraduate programmes at University.

The main elements of studies will be:

1) the learning and cognitive process, influence of personal, socio-cultural and organisational factors;
2) students image of Science, how students recognize the richeness and limits of scientific results;
3) different forms of labwork, working models, scientific approaches, use of IT for collection and data processing;
4) role and effectiveness of teachers, their perception and objectives of labwork;
5) production of teaching material, innovative teaching processes, use of computers etc.

As a basis of any study, a clear picture of the different teaching approach using labwork in different countries is necessary. This wil be reached by a survey at the very beginning of the project, in order to provide a common framework of description and a resource for any following study, survey or case study.
The seven research groups will discuss in regular meetings, in order to develop common research questions and analysis. For the whole group this will be done in the 2nd, 9th and 21st month of the study.

This research project will allow the identification of new educational goals. It'll give the possibility for teachers, academics and decision makers to improve the science education of their students and to exploit the potential of labwork. In addition it's relevant to all the active participants in decisions about science and technology in public life.