Dissertation
Virtual and Hands-on Laboratory Environments in the Science Classroom: The Effect of Prior Science Achievement
(2018)
Abstract
A study was conducted to investigate the extent to which previous science achievement affected
student performance in traditional hands-on and virtual laboratory environments. A sample of 70
first-year college students was employed in a counterbalanced A-B-A-B experimental design.
The study spanned four instructional weeks of laboratory experimentation alternating traditional
and virtual learning environments. For each of the four labs, students were given a pre-test
designed to measure content knowledge, administered the intervention of virtual labs, and this
was followed by an identical post-test. Prior science achievement was assessed using a general
chemistry assessment exam. T-tests revealed that student performance did not differ between the
hands-on and virtual environments. Results of a MANOVA showed that virtual labs were more
effective than hands-on labs for high-achieving students, whereas there was no difference for
low-achieving students. Results of a second MANOVA revealed that high-achieving students
outperformed low-achieving students on hands-on lab 3, virtual lab 3, and hands-on lab 4.
Findings suggest that the use of virtual labs does not harm science achievement and may
conserve resources, but may expand the gap between high- and low-achieving students in the
science laboratory.
Keywords
- virtual,
- hands-on,
- laboratory,
- virtual labs,
- VTL,
- HOL,
- blended laboratory,
- simulation,
- technology,
- science education,
- experimentation
Disciplines
Publication Date
August 12, 2018
Degree
Doctor of Education in Learning and Teaching
Citation Information
Michael A. Marino. "Virtual and Hands-on Laboratory Environments in the Science Classroom: The Effect of Prior Science Achievement" (2018) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/michael-marino/5/
Creative Commons license
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC_BY-NC International License.