Virtual Labs as a Tool for Training Preservice Science Teachers

Fatimah Alhashem

Education Unit at the English Department, Gulf University for Science and Technology, Alaqsa Street, KuwaitCity, Kuwait

Keywords: Virtual Labs, Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Pre-Service Teachers, Training, Science Education.

Abstract: 22 pre-service teachers in the college of education pursuing Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) in science for

middle and high school were divided into experimental and controlled groups. Both were surveyed before and

after an organic chemistry lesson (Reactions of Carbonyl Compounds) and a lab session. The only difference

is that the experimental group were trained prior the lab session via virtual learning interventions. Findings

from quantitative data analysis revealed a positive significant difference in pre-service teachers’ attitudes

towards learning experiences during virtual laboratory experiments post learning interventions. The

implications of these findings project virtual laboratories as a supporting tool for experimentation in chemistry

especially in approaching 21st century of learning outcomes where issues of integrating technology into

learning is part of the teaching practices. Recommendations from these findings are discussed herein.

1 INTRODUCTION

Chemistry is a part of science that consists of theories,

facts, concepts, and laws that are tested through a set

of experimental activities. One of the main objectives

of learning chemistry is to understand how elements

and substance are reacting to each other and how to

benefit from these reactions in everyday life (Ural,

2016). Furthermore, learning chemistry helps in

infinite branches of sciences such as medicine,

pharmacy, industry in general and many more which

makes it an essential subject in school curriculum

(Ural, 2016). K-12 curriculum consist of varied

concepts, facts and law that supports building, and

developing the potential of learners to master required

competencies in the field of chemistry. Cetin-Dindar

et. al (2018) stated that learning chemistry has

developed and requires incorporating technology too.

Technology in chemistry has developed and

enhanced the accuracy of the experiments and

reflected on development of results and

understanding too (Ali & Ullah, 2020). Therefore,

many education systems integrated use of technology

into the body of sciences in general including

chemistry (Nsabayezu, et.al, 2022). However, using

technology requires set of standards that need to be

integrated professionally to assure best practices and

best understanding among students.

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9474-4825

Many studies discussed virtual labs' effect and

perception on teaching and learning sciences. For

example, Peechapol (2021) conducted a study about

the effect of virtual lab simulation on chemistry

subjects. This study aimed to investigate the impact

of virtual labs on three main issues. These issues are

learning achievement, self-efficacy, and learning

Experience. The design of this study was a quasi-

experiment. The number of participants was 95 first-

year undergraduate students. The participants were

into two groups. The experimental group had 50

students, and the control group had 45 students. Both

groups had to take pre-test and post-test. The control

group used the virtual lab as a learning method. Both

groups had traditional chemistry lecturers. The study

results showed that the experimental group students

scored significantly higher than the control group in

the learning achievement test. In addition, the

students in the experimental group positively

impacted the students' self-efficacy more than the

students in the control group. Also, the students in the

experimental group had a positive experience using

the virtual lab.

1.1 Purpose of the Study

It is possible to adopt and incorporate the 21st century

skills into the school’s curriculum using virtual

Alhashem, F.

Virtual Labs as a Tool for Training Preservice Science Teachers.

DOI: 10.5220/0011848100003470

In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2023) - Volume 1, pages 233-237

ISBN: 978-989-758-641-5; ISSN: 2184-5026

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

233

approach, by training teachers’ specific tools

pertaining the 21st century skills and distance

learning. Therefore, this study was designed to

establish in a virtual lab training for controlled group

of preservice science teachers to integrate the 21

century skills with core content and in his study the

core subject was chemistry.

The goal of the project was to provide training of

use of technology while learning about the core

subject and then explored the perspective of both

those who were trained (experimental group) and

those who did not (controlled group). The 21

century

skills in learning needs competent teachers that are

skilled and able to integrate technology in their

classes while teaching. Therefore, the research

question for this study was: Are there statistical

significant differences between the experimental

group (which experimented with the virtual

laboratories) and the control group when looking at

their educational and technical perceptions related to

organic chemistry lab experiment?

2 METHOD

In order to answer the research question, the research

was divided into the design phase which consisted of

the following:

Choosing the chemistry lesson that is being taught

in the university chemistry course curriculum, part of

high school curriculum, and has a virtual experiment

in the platform that matches the curriculum. The

lesson was Reactions of Carbonyl Compounds. The

carbonyl group (C=O) is a foundation of plentiful

significant reactions in organic chemistry; mostly a

result of the separation of the carbon-oxygen bond

because of the relative high electronegativity of the

oxygen atom. The experiment consisted of

Benzaldehyde-2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazone which is a

substituted hydrazine compound commonly used to

test for aldehydes and ketones in the Brady's test. The

instruments of the study consisted of the virtual lab

software that has an Arabicized of different

disciplines of science experiment. The research team

used school textbook to select the appropriate

chemistry lesson and matched it with the chemistry

lessons in the college level. Next, the research team

preserved a chemistry lab to conduct the experiment

for both controlled and experimental groups

In terms of the survey, students’ perspective based

were tested pre and post the whole procedure based

on the statements (that were developed by the team)

in table 1 and 2 below. The survey has two sections.

The first section focuses on students' perspectives

about the educational aspect related to lab

experiences. In this section, there are 13 items related

to the educational aspect. The second section focuses

on students' perspectives on the technical aspects of

lab experiences. In this section, there are ten items

related to the technical aspect. Finally, experts have

validated the instruments. Those experts majored in

science education and educational technology.

3 RESULTS

Table 1 shows the MANOVA tests for group, time

and for interaction of group and time. The MANOVA

tests for group (Pillai’s trace = 0.104; Wilk’s

Lambda = .896; Hotelling’s trace = .116, Roy's

Largest Root = 0.116; F = 2.890; p-values for all four

tests =o.o65), time (Pillai’s trace = 0.082; Wilk’s

Lambda = 0.918; Hotelling’s trace = 0.089, Roy's

Largest Root = 0.089; F = 2.219; p-values for all four

tests =0.119) and group*time (Pillai’s trace = 0.034;

Wilk’s Lambda = 0.966; Hotelling’s trace = 0.035,

Roy's Largest Root = 0.035; F = 0.869; p-values for

all four tests =0.425) were all not significant.

Table 1: Multivariate tests use the MANOVA test, used

Pillai's Trace, Wilks Lambda, Hotelling's Trace, and Roy's

Largest Root analysis at a significance level of 5% (α =

0.05) for students’ scores in both tests A and B.

value F df1 df2 p

Group Pillai's Trace 0.104 2.890 2 50 0.065

Wilks' Lambda 0.896 2.890 2 50 0.065

Hotelling's

Trace

0.116 2.890 2 50 0.065

Roy's Largest

Root

0.116 2.890 2 50 0.065

Time Pillai's Trace 0.082 2.219 2 50 0.119

Wilks' Lambda 0.918 2.219 2 50 0.119

Hotelling's

Trace

0.089 2.219 2 50 0.119

Roy's Largest

Root

0.089 2.219 2 50 0.119

Group ✻

Time

Pillai's Trace 0.034 0.869 2 50 0.425

Wilks' Lambda 0.966 0.869 2 50 0.425

Hotelling's

Trace

0.035 0.869 2 50 0.425

Roy's Largest

Root

0.035 0.869 2 50 0.425

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The results of follow-up tests for the main effect

of group and time and for interaction effect of

group*time are reported in Table 2. The results of

follow up test shows that the scores of the students in

test A differ significantly in control and experiment

condition (p=0.028). Additionally, a significant

difference in students score was also observed in pre

and posttest (p = 0.046).

Table 2: Univariate tests of between-subjects effects of

students scores between group levels and time levels.

Dependent

Variable

Sum of

Squares

Mean

Square

F p

Group PartAOverall 0.502 1 0.502 5.108 0.028

PartBOverall 0.809 1 0.809 3.375 0.072

Time PartAOverall 0.019 1 0.019 0.188 0.666

PartBOverall 1.003 1 1.003 4.184 0.046

Group ✻

Time

PartAOverall 0.160 1 0.160 1.631 0.207

PartBOverall 0.016 1 0.016 0.068 0.796

Residuals PartAOverall 5.016 51 0.098

PartBOverall 12.224 51 0.240

Estimate Independent Mean Difference for Part A

and B test scores

A significant difference was observed in the

students’ scores of in test A under experimental and

control condition (t = 2.264, df = 53, and p-value =

0.028). The mean score of students under experiment

condition (mean =3.734) was high as compared to the

mean score of students belong to control group (mean

=3.542) (Table 3).

Table 3: Compare Two Means of students’ scores between

group levels for part A test scores.

95 % CI

Condition M Lower Upper S N

Experiment 3.734 3.644 3.825 0.247 30

Control 3.542 3.391 3.694 0.378 25

Difference 0.192 0.022 0.362 0.313 55

Note: CIs are at the 95 % level. This comparison

was made on unpaired data. Equal variance was

assumed. s in the row for the difference is the pooled

standard deviation. Also, u

nbiased

= 0.60 95% CI [0.07,

1.19] Note that the standardized effect size is

dunbiased because the denominator used was

SDpooled which had a value of 0.313 The

standardized effect size has been corrected for

bias.The bias-corrected version of Cohen's d is

sometimes also (confusingly) called Hedges' g. The

decision for this hypothesis is there is significant

differences between group level regarding overall

scores for test A(t = 2.264, df = 53, and p-value =

0.028).

4 DISCUSSION

In this study, a Multivariate analysis of variance

(MANOVA) was applied in order to investigate the

perspective of preservice science teachers about the

use of virtual lab for chemistry lessons as a tool of

training. The study consisted to two groups

(controlled and experimental). The controlled group

were lectured and did the chemistry lab while the

controlled were lectured, practiced virtually then

conducted the experiment in the actual lab. The

results of this study indicated that, virtual labs

enhanced the experimental preservice teachers to

have higher responses in terms of the education

aspects, this is in line with the findings of Mutlu and

Acar Şeşen (2016) who concluded that students were

more engaged via virtual labs and help in supporting

in real labs context. This means virtual labs have very

important effects on real experiments and could be a

useful tool of practice prior an actual lab. It was also

observed that the level of interactive and engagement

was higher for the experimental group during

conducting the lab compared to control group.

Next, the statistical results of this study showed

that score of students are high in experiment group as

compared to the control group. Additionally, the

finding shows that student’ scores more in posttest as

compared to pretest. This was due to students' active

participation in learning through discussions and to

complete the tasks via Praxilab. This outcome was in

line with Falode (2018) who exposed that the use of

virtual lab improved students' conceptual

understanding and it was reflected on their

achievement. Also, the results indicated that students

were significantly towards the educational aspect in

control and experiment condition (p=0.028) where

experimental group had more exposure to different

educational method (virtual lab) compared to the

controlled one. Both groups however did not show

any significant different towards the technical aspects

of the experiments. Thus, it could be said that the

effect of virtual lab related to their perspective on the

Virtual Labs as a Tool for Training Preservice Science Teachers

235

technical aspects of the chemistry lab was not

different for both groups.

5 CONCLUSION

Many research expressed positive results towards

using technology in education and that the students

are engage in the use of virtual labs helped both

teachers and students together ((Cetin-Dindar et. Al,

(2018); Nsabayezu, et.al, (2022).).

Also, conducting experiments come across many

obstacles such as costs, lack of time and shortage of

supplies (Ali & Ullah, 2020). Applying technology

via virtual labs could be an option for solving the long

lasting problem of aiding students in science in

general and in chemistry in specific for better lab

performance. Based on the data analysis and

discussion above, it could be concluded that: the

application of Praxilab is able to effectively enhance

students’ learning experiences but may require more

investigations to know more about enhancing

students’ technical aspects.

5.1 Recommendation

The study made the following recommendations:

• It is evident that, virtual lab is effective in

improving preservice teachers’ learning

experiences in chemistry. Therefore,

educators should use this teaching tool to

facilitate their science teaching.

• Preservice programs should incorporate

educational technology into their curriculum

for practicing during their years of studying so

that they can embrace the skills of the teaching

model for effective implementation of the in

teaching biology.

• Preservice teachers should be exposed to

virtual lab experiences prior reaching their

student teaching level and be familiarized

using it in their future classrooms.

• Virtual labs should be suggested for some

chemistry content areas in the curriculum

especially very difficult concepts or those that

are risky to be implemented in classrooms.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was funded by Gulf University for

Science and Technology via internal seed grant Case

253127 in year 2022.

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