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The purpose of this paper is to study the use and value of practical work in the secondary school science classroom. Informed by the findings of a large survey of students from a wide variety of schools, a case study of pupils in the middle secondary range sought to investigate the precise role of practical work in the learning of a specific topic over a series of lessons.

Qualitative and quantitative assessment of academic progress of two classes of pupils revealed that students who undertook practical tasks made greater gains in knowledge and understanding than those who undertook non-practical alternatives. In order to explore students’ views about the practical tasks and whether they found them to be an affective and effective aid for their learning, data were collected using questionnaires, lesson observations and interviews of focus groups.

The data suggest three reasons why practical work supported pupils’ learning. First, practical work supported their visualisation of abstract concepts and provided a stimulus for the recall of key facts later. Second, it provided a distinctive opportunity for pupils to work collaboratively, with associated gains. Finally, hands-on tasks promoted a classroom atmosphere rich in variety, semi-autonomous learning and self-discovery, which pupils found intrinsically motivational.

This study, which responds to the criticism practical work has received in recent years, sheds some light on the mechanisms through which the strategy supports learning in certain contexts. Moreover it argues that practical work needs to be effectively planned to maximise the learning gains made by pupils.

It is a sunny, windy, and cool spring day as I sit down to write my reflections on the preceding papers. It is the end of another semester and the final grades have been turned in. Forty years ago I began my academic career at the University of Iowa and two weeks ago my departmental colleagues and my family staged a symposium to mark my retirement. On my desk, just to my right, is a draft of an article requiring my next attention for a special issue of Symbolic Interaction on the past and future of the perspective. So, it feels fitting to comment on my career and scholarly corpus, and the sense-making and framing of it by my gracious, learned and most collegial fellow travelers. I am honored by their willingness to participate in this endeavor and their generous accountings and interpretations. But I can write no further without acknowledging the respectful but strong directing of Shing-Ling Chen in planning and producing the session and the publication of these papers. She gets us all organized, despite our tendencies to procrastination.