Investigating the Use of Virtual Labs to Promote Chemical Reasoning and Practice Skills

Co-Principal Investigator: Yaron, David

The activities focus on the practice of designing investigations, which is essential to understanding the process of science but is difficult to teach and learn. Each activity in the series was designed to fit into one to two 45-minute class periods and allow students to pause and continue where they left off. The activities provide individualized instruction with feedback tailored to each student's interactions with the system. As students move through the activities, they respond to interactive prompts to plan and carry out investigations in a virtual chemistry lab. For all activities, students can request hints and will receive feedback (either explanations or additional practice) if they are on the wrong track.

A key component of the activities is the ChemCollective virtual laboratory simulation that allows students to plan and carry out investigations in an open-ended, but scaffolded, environment. Such open-ended simulation environments offer an alternative to textbooks and have shown promise for allowing students to visualize invisible processes, develop conceptual understanding, and demonstrate science practice skills. The activities generated log files that maintained a complete record of students' interactions.

After the expert review of mock-ups of the activities, in phase 2, the research included two major cycles of usability and classroom feasibility testing. For the usability studies, think aloud studies with eight students and four high school chemistry teachers were conducted to determine whether the activities were operating as intended, elicited targeted core ideas and practices, and were motivating and engaging for the students. For the feasibility study, the researchers tested a subset of the activities during the spring of the 2017–2018 school year and 2018–2019 school year. During the 2019–2020 school year, the researchers captured data on all eight activities through classroom observations and student think-alouds. Throughout usability and feasibility testing, the researchers conducted classroom observations and teacher interviews as well as collected student interaction and post-test assessment data from the Open Learning Initiative system, teacher instructional logs, and a teacher questionnaire.

In phase 3 of the study, the researchers assessed the promise of the fully developed intervention using a cluster-randomized control trial design, randomly assigning half of for each teacher's classes to use the ChemVLab+ activities, and assigning the other half to use active control materials based on Khan Academy offerings. The researchers recruited 11 teachers to participate in year 3 of the project (during the 2020–21 school year), though 1 teacher was unable to complete the study because of issues related to decreased instructional time due to COVID-19. Classroom observations, teacher logs, student activity logs, and post-test data were collected.