New Perspectives in Science Education

In this paper the efficiency of virtual chemical experiment on acquiring chemical knowledge in elementary education was investigated. Virtual experiments were presented as video-clips of laboratory chemical experiments, recorded and edited by authors of this paper. In this research we used a convenience sample of 87 eighth-grade elementary students (age 14) who all attended chemistry lectures conducted by one teacher only. Research was organized and conducted as a pedagogical experiment with parallel groups. Control group was a classical teaching approach group which consisted of 29 students, in which only frontal method was applied. Students neither did nor saw any laboratory experiments; they were only described to students verbally. Students in the second group (experimental group 1) have done all laboratory experiments included in the chemistry syllabus for the eighth grade, either as individual or as demonstration experiments. Students in the third group (experimental group 2) haven’t conducted experiments themselves, but were shown video-clips of the same experiments as the experimental group 1. Students were randomly assigned to one of these three groups, and the initial equivalence of groups was checked by comparing their achievement in a pre-test which tested their knowledge of basic chemistry terms and concepts. Effects of teaching methods were determined by testing students’ knowledge by five subtests from the educational theme “Biologically important organic compounds”, and also a final test, conducted a month after completion of the pedagogical experiment.

Analysis of students’ achievements on all subtests and on final test shows that there exist significant differences between achievements of students in three groups. The best results were achieved by the Experimental group 1, both in subtest and in final testing. Results of the Experimental group 2 were slightly lower, but significantly higher that the scores achieved by the control group. These findings implicate that virtual material can be successfully used as a replacement for hands-on laboratory experiments in situations when it is impossible to conduct them during classes (when laboratory equipment and substances are not available in quantities necessary for individual practical work of students). However, it is important to emphasize that, although acquired knowledge of students reaches the satisfactory level, it cannot be expected that they will reach the same level of competencies in manual techniques and laboratory skills.