Pedagogically-Improved Blended Learning of a Chemistry Course Through a Computerized Virtual Laboratory (original) (raw)
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International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology, 2019
Laboratory activity as an integral part of learning chemistry provides students with a learning experience built up through student's interaction with concrete material is deficient in science secondary school students in Nigeria. This unpleasant situation resulted from the fact that, in many schools, laboratory personnel and facilities are either partially available or not completely available. This paper discussed some of the benefits of a virtual chemistry laboratory and how its three-dimensional interactive nature would be used to overcome these problems in order to enhance students' understanding and achievement in chemistry through the integration of the virtual chemistry laboratories in conducting chemistry practical. The paper further suggested for the integration of virtual chemistry laboratories or even support the real laboratories with virtual ones, particularly in schools that lack equipped chemistry laboratories in Nigeria.
Utilising the Virtual Laboratory Resources for incorporating ICT in the Chemistry Teacher Education
2010
Teaching chemistry laboratory procedures by means of a virtual laboratory on a personal computer will be much welcome by educational institutions for whom maintaining a hands-on chemistry lab is not viable due to various reasons. Instructional laboratory simulations can be incorporated in the virtual laboratory resources where students are free to make the decisions they would confront in an actual laboratory setting. Real-life situations and problems are faced by them, where they have to make/take decisions and face the consequences thereof. The student may take such additional support online after he has attended the same in the laboratory. Concepts and skills learnt by him through hands-on activity in the classroom-laboratory would be enhanced through this sort of blended learning approach. But the chemistry teachers are not often aware of the potential of these virtual laboratory resources. So an attempt to showcase the rich virtual laboratory resources are done in this paper so...
A Comparative Analysis of Virtual and Traditional Laboratory Chemistry Learning
Perspectives in Education, 2019
Laboratory experimentation in the context of school science is a widely advocated teaching strategy for the simplification of several abstract scientific concepts. Laboratory-based learning activities have proven to enhance learners' conceptual and procedural understandings of micro chemical phenomena, thus boosting achievement in chemistry content tests. In the South African education landscape where there is inequitable distribution of resources for laboratory-based science learning, this study exploited how available virtual learning resources could also be used for learning chemistry concepts, and further compared student achievement in chemistry content test post intervention with both traditional and virtual laboratory learning resources. In this quasi-experimental study, we provided a group of third-year pre-service science teachers (n=50) with four chemistry concepts to learn using a hands-on traditional (control group) and a virtual laboratory (experimental group) intervention. The same pre and post chemistry content test was administered to control and experimental groups of pre-service teachers (herein also referred to as students), before and after learning interventions, with the aim of assessing students' achievements post-learning in the two different laboratory environments. Tests scores were analysed and the results of a paired-sample t-test showed a statistically significant difference between pre-and post-test results for all groups of students. Using independent sample t-tests, we further compared post-test scores for the control and experimental groups which revealed the mean post-test score of the experimental group (M = 79.36, SD = 8.306), being significantly higher than that of the control group (M = 68.72, SD = 9.076) at t (48) = 4.32, p < .01. The findings from these tests indicated that, students obtained significantly higher achievement scores postlaboratory learning interventions and that virtual laboratory interventions yielded significantly higher achievement scores than traditional laboratory interventions. Based on these findings, the researchers concluded that, laboratory learning has a positive impact on achievement in chemistry and that virtual laboratories provide a worthy complement for traditional laboratories when learning abstract and difficult chemistry concepts. Implications of these findings and some recommendations for practice and research are also discussed herein.
The Effect of the Virtual Laboratory on Students' Achievement and Attitude in Chemistry
In chemistry education laboratory activities increase students' interest in the subject matters covered in the class and help their learning. Due to lack of laboratories at schools or insufficient instruments in laboratories, hands on experiments are rarely performed in state schools in Turkey. However, such experiments can be virtually done as a result of recent developments in Information Technology. In this study, a virtual laboratory related to ‚Separation of Matter‛ unit for 9 th grade students was prepared and its effects on students' achievements and attitudes were investigated. For this aim 16 virtual experiments prepared by using flash program and used in the experimental group. Result of this study showed that virtual laboratory applications made positive effects on students' achievements and attitudes when compared to traditional teaching methods.
International Journal of Instructional Technology and Educational Studies, 2021
This study adopted quasi experimental design. Pretest, posttest experimental and control groups design was adopted. Two research questions and two hypotheses formulated and tested at 0.05 level significance. The population for the study comprises of 3395 senior secondary school chemistry students in Minna metropolis, Niger state. A multi-stage sampling technique was employed, which were clustered into A &B with a sample size of 120. Four schools were randomly sampled. Balancing of Chemical Equation Achievement Test (BOCEAT). BOCEAT was validated by three experts, one in Measurement and Evaluation and two science educators in the Department of Science Education of the Federal University of Technology, Minna for both face and content validation. Test, retest was administered to ascertain reliability index for BOCEAT and the data collected from both the experimental and control groups for the reliability were statistically analyzed using t-test to calculate the internal consistency which yielded 0.87. The data collected for the study were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer research questions and t-test to test the formulated hypothesis at 0.05 levels of significance. Findings from the study showed that virtual laboratory instructional package impacted positively on students' academic achievement in chemistry practical than traditional method. On the mean achievement scores of male and female students taught balancing of chemical equations using virtual laboratory strategy, female did better than the male. Based on the findings of the study, chemistry teachers should be encouraged to use virtual laboratory strategy while teaching chemistry concepts especially balancing of chemical equation.
Effect of virtual analytical chemistry laboratory on enhancing student research skills and practices
Research in Learning Technology, 2017
This article aims to determine the effect of a virtual chemistry laboratory on university student achievement. The article describes a model of a laboratory course that includes a virtual component. This virtual component is viewed as a tool of student pre-lab autonomous learning. It presents electronic resources designed for a virtual laboratory and outlines the methodology of e-resource application. To find out how virtual chemistry laboratory affects student scientific literacy, research skills and practices, a pedagogical experiment has been conducted. Student achievement was compared in two learning environments: traditional-in-class hands-on-learning (control group) and blended learning-online learning combined with in-person learning (experimental group). The effectiveness of integrating an e-lab in the laboratory study was measured by comparing student lab reports of the two groups. For that purpose, a set of 10 criteria was developed. The experimental and control student groups were also compared in terms of test results and student portfolios. The study showed that the adopted approach blending both virtual and hands-on learning environments has the potential to enhance student research skills and practices in analytical chemistry studies.
Virtual chemistry laboratory (virtual chem-lab): potential experimental media in hybrid learning
Journal of physics, 2019
A laboratory has a very important role in learning chemistry. It facilitates the experimental activity which supports the students' understanding. The development of information and communication technology has provided an innovation known as the virtual laboratory. This study aims to reveal the quality of virtual chemistry laboratory (virtual chemlab) integrated into hybrid learning on chemical bonding. This research was a research and development study. The development procedure used in this study consisted of four stages: analyzing, product planning, product developing, and product assessing being adapted from the ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation) development model. The initial product of the virtual chem-lab was content validated by material and media experts. Product assessment was applied to 28 chemistry teachers, including content, learning quality, and technical quality aspects. The result of this assessment was descriptively analyzed to reveal the quality of the product. The findings of this study reveal that the quality of the virtual chem-lab integrated hybrid learning is in a good category. Thus, the virtual chem-lab is potentially used for further teaching-learning.
Virtual Chemistry Laboratory: a didactic alternative to the teaching of Organic Chemistry
Research, Society and Development
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are ubiquitous in our everyday lives as well as in educational contexts, much more so after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. The use of ICTs in education, e.g., virtual laboratories, is of great importance to support the teaching of chemistry. Given the difficulties secondary school students encounter in understanding organic chemistry topics, this research aimed at investigating whether the use of a software program could improve teaching and promote student learning of content related to organic compounds. To this end, the data were collected by means of a pre- and a post-intervention questionnaire. The study was conducted at a public secondary school in Itacoatiara, AM, Brazil, with 3rd-year (final year) students. The software programs IrYdium Chemistry Lab, LAPEQ-USP (Laboratory of Research in Chemistry Teaching and Educational Technologies, University of São Paulo), and Simulations for Chemistry were employed to introduce the...
A need analysis in developing virtual laboratory according to the chemistry teachers
Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 2019
Technology-based learning was always done to face up the growth of technology in the modern era. It attracted students to understand the subject matter. The development of the technology-based practicum media could facilitate students in practicum without the real tools and materials. The media could save the tools and materials that were expensive. However, need analysis were required to find out what it needed in the chemistry class according to the chemistry teachers. This research is descriptive research with quantitative and qualitative data. This need analysis used a questionnaire as an instrument that contain 6 open-ended questions and 2 yes-no questions. A virtual laboratory is one of the practicum media that can resolve the limitation of tools, materials and learning time. Respondents from this research were 37 chemistry teachers who have been teaching chemistry for at least 5 years. The data were analyzed using analysis of percentages. The results of this study obtained 91.89% of respondents stated to need an integrated virtual chemistry laboratory in hybrid learning. While practicum-based matters that were perceived to require a virtual chemistry laboratory were chemical equilibrium, electrochemistry and reaction rates. This research can be used as a criterion for developing the technology-based media.
An Interactive and Self-instructional Virtual Chemistry Laboratory
International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET), 2016
Virtual laboratory is becoming one of the most significant educational technologies due to financial challenges which often required construction of physical laboratories, particularly in educational institutions in developing countries. This paper presents an integrated virtual environment to help individual learners to enhance the practical learning of chemistry fundamentals. Through this environment, the learner will navigate, visualize and simulate a real laboratory environment and its associated processes. The proposed laboratory interface and curriculum were tested on students to measure their satisfaction with the quality of developed laboratory. The results of the evaluation showed a positive response effect on the students’ satisfaction.