Effect of virtual laboratory strategy on the achievement of secondary school students in physics practical in Minna, Nigeria.

Abstract

This study examined the influence of virtual laboratory strategy on the achievement of secondary students in physics practical in Minna, Nigeria. The study also investigated the influence of gender and retention on the use of virtual laboratory strategy. Pretest, posttest experimental and control groups design was adopted. Three hypotheses were formulated at 0.05 level of significance. Two co-educational secondary schools were selected from Minna metropolis for this study. The sample consists of thirty two (32) senior secondary two (SS II) physics students. 16 students were randomly selected from each school and assigned Experimental and Control groups. The experimental group (n =16) was exposed to virtual laboratory strategy while the control group (n = 16) was exposed to conventional laboratory method. Two research instruments were used in this study: (i) Practical Physics Achievement Test (PPAT) was used as a testing instrument, it comprised of 40-item multiple-choices physics achievement test; (ii) Virtual Laboratory Strategy Package (VLSP) was used as a treatment instrument, made up of three components (text, video and simulated experiment). The instruments were validated by experts. The Kudar-Richardson (KR=21) formula yielded 0.92 reliability coefficient. t-test, mean and standard deviation were used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 levels of significance. The results from the findings revealed that students’ taught physics practical using virtual laboratory strategy performed better than those taught using conventional laboratory method (tcal= 0.247, df = 30, p = 0.000). There was no significant difference between the mean achievement scores of male and female students taught physics practical using virtual laboratory strategy (tcal= 0.247, df = 14, p = 0.809). Students’ taught physics practical using virtual laboratory strategy performed better in retention test than those taught using conventional laboratory method (tcal= 7.777, df = 30, p = 0.000). There was no significant difference between the retention mean scores of male and female students taught physics practical using virtual laboratory strategy (tcal= 0.837, df = 14, p = 0.417). Based on the findings, it was recommended that virtual laboratory strategy should be used to supplement physics practical in conventional laboratory setting or adopted as alternative in the absence of physics standard condition for laboratory activities.