Effectiveness of Virtual Lab on Academic Achievement and Science Process Skills among Higher Secondary Stage Students in Physics

Abstract

The present era witnessed a boom in technologies. This ushered in an alteration in the newlinefabric of our societies. With the shifting configuration of our societies, the necessity to newlineintegrate emergent technologies and pedagogies becomes obligatory. It is even more newlineimperative to adopt emerging technologies and pedagogies in teaching physics since newlinephysics is the backbone of all technological developments. This demands the learners to newlinetransfer and apply the knowledge gained into the classrooms in solving problems of the newlineworld. But this could not be realized unless the students learn physics while being newlineactively engaged in the classroom activities. Engaging the students in laboratory activities newlineis the most suitable and useful in not only imparting procedural knowledge and skills but newlinealso cognitive knowledge to the students. Contrarily, the teaching methods that are newlinepersistently adopted in teaching physics are predominantly lecture-based, teacher-centric, newlineand hence do not cater to the needs of the students. Moreover, physics involves concepts newlinethat are quite abstract and students find perplexity in attributing meaning to the symbols newlineand representations. Even more, the students find difficulty in understanding the content newlineas a whole, locating new information in their schema, and transforming this information newlineinto knowledge due to a lack of visualization. So this poses a hindrance to learning newlinephysics resulting in lower academic achievement and science process skills. newlineHowever, emerging technologies like a virtual lab which are the mimic of physical labs newlinewithout physical existence provide ample opportunities to the students for active newlineengagement in the learning process, by providing concretization and visualization of the newlineconcepts. This further develops conceptual understanding of the students and problem- newlinesolving abilities among the students. Owing to the benefits of the virtual lab, this study was conducted to ascertain the effectiveness of virtual lab on academic achievement and newlinescience process skills in physics