Scientific abilities in undergraduate projects and laboratory

Projects are being increasingly used to provide a richer experience in physics teaching laboratories and in the higher years these may well approximate to the real world of industry and research. In first year however a wide range of approaches are utilised from projects to open-ended experiments yet questions remain about how students can best acquire a range of desired scientific abilities. Recent physics education research has suggested tools and approaches to help develop and measure the abilities such as needed to design and implement an experiment. Examples from several countries illustrate the need for matching the task with students' capabilities and how various goals may be achieved for student learning in the laboratory.