The teaching/learning environment in undergraduate physics laboratories inhibits critical thinking about the experiment, the data, and the physics by a lack of time to do detailed analysis of the data during the laboratory period. This situation can be corrected significantly by the use of microcomputers in the laboratory with data acquisition hardware and software to speed data collection. A spread sheet program and a graphical package allow real-time data manipulation leading toward increased confidence in the quality of the data and into insights into the physics the data portray. Student or instructor written programs provide special analysis tools.This new environment, common to the physics researcher, now can be the domain of the physics student. Modest prices for powerful desk-top computers makes it possible to install one work station for every two students with data acquisition hardware and software. Given these tools and guided in their constructive use, students can investigate the "what if" questions prompted by a critical analysis of the experiment. A greater appreciation of the real methodologies of experimental physics can emerge and develop.
