Outreach science labs aim to promote students’ interest. Previous research has often suggested that performing experiments in such labs has a positive effect on their interest. However, these studies often lack a comparison to the effects of performing them at school. This research gap was addressed in the present study. The sample consisted of 402 upper-secondary level students (age: M = 16.53 years, SD = 0.80 years) who performed three experiments on the topic of enzymology either in an outreach science lab (n = 203) or at school (n = 199). Contrary to the assumption, experimentation at the outreach science lab did not outperform experimentation at school in terms of students’ psychological state of interest in the comparison to the school setting. Surprisingly, differences in the value-related component of the psychological state of interest were even found in favor of the school treatment.

外展科学实验室旨在提高学生的兴趣。先前的研究经常表明，在此类实验室中进行实验对他们的兴趣有积极的影响。然而，这些研究往往缺乏与在学校进行的效果的比较。本研究解决了这一研究空白。样本由 402 名高中学生（年龄：M = 16.53 岁，SD = 0.80 岁）组成，他们在外展科学实验室 ( n = 203) 或在学校 ( n = 199 ) 进行了三项有关酶学主题的实验。 ）。与假设相反，与学校环境相比，就学生感兴趣的心理状态而言，外展科学实验室的实验并没有优于学校的实验。令人惊讶的是，兴趣心理状态的价值相关部分的差异甚至有利于学校待遇。