Investigating the Effectiveness of Virtual Laboratories in an Undergraduate Biology Course

In the last 20 years online distance education has become a valuable andragogical tool. The purpose of the current study was designed to investigate student perceptions of biology virtual laboratories. Research findings indicate that students prefer to participate in virtual labs compared to traditional (e.g., face-to-face) labs. Data also indicated that students perceived higher learning gains as a result of participating in virtual labs compared to traditional hands-on labs. Suggestions for future research studies examining virtual laboratory effectiveness in science courses are explored in this article.

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