Effect of Virtual Laboratory Practical on Students’ Attitude towards Chemistry

Abstract

The study explored the effect of virtual laboratory practical on students’ attitude towards chemistry. Three research questions and null hypotheses guided the study. A quasi-experimental research design was adopted for the study. The population comprised 5361 secondary school two (SS 2) students in Jalingo Education Zone. Multistage sampling was used to select 106 students from two intact classes: one of which was assigned to experimental group while the other was the control group. Students Attitude towards Chemistry Scale (SACS) was used for data collection. The SACS was validated by three experts, and the reliability was established to be 0.89 through Cronbach alpha. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. No significant difference was found in the attitude ratings of students who did practical through virtual and physical laboratory means (p>0.05). No significant difference was found in the attitude of male and female students in the virtual laboratory group and there was no
significant interaction effect of the practical methods and gender on students’ attitude towards chemistry (p>0.05). It was concluded that in the absence of or shortage of reagents in physical laboratory, virtual laboratory could complement it. It was recommended among others that virtual laboratory experience be provided in other to scale up students’ attitude towards chemistry.