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The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of two different types of laboratories on (in freshman physics) student's achievement. The secondary objectives were to investigate the effects of attitude toward science education and physics, critical thinking ability , type of lycee science curriculum. Proficiency level of English and sex as intervening variables on the suspected relationship which may exist. Two types of treatment approach were included into two teaching - learning packages; one having the inquiry oriented laboratory given before lectures and the other having verification oriented laboratory given after the lectures. The whole project which is called PROJECT 181, was designed and conducted by Prof. Özinönü. This study is a part of that project where "Randomized Control Group Pre - Post Design" described by Campbell and Stanley was used. The population consisted of 104 students registered in PHY 181 at METU in the fall semester of 1984-85 Academic Year . The subjects were randomly assigned to two samples; experimental group consisting of 51 students and were taught by the inquiry oriented laboratory before lectures, and control group consisting of 53 students were taught by verification oriented laboratory after lectures. Both groups took 50 class hours of physics lectures given by the same instructor, and 21 hours of two different laboratory practice. Physics Achievement Test (PAT), Attitude Scale on Science and Physics (ASSP), Critical Thinking Ability Test (CTAT) were administrated to the students in both groups as pre-test, and two groups were found to be equivalent on three variables and in English. In this particular study, which is included in PROJECT 181, eleven null hypotheses were stated. The t-test, Fisher's Zr transformation, ANOVA and ANCOVA were used to test these null hypotheses. Findings of the study showed that:
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