Abstract—The extended periods of absence from physical
laboratories due to school closures in COVID- 19 pandemic has
shortened the contact hours required to develop essential
practical skills. This research investigates the perceived
effectiveness of upper secondary teachers on virtual labs due to
this circumstance. The research participants are subject-matter
physics specialists who have been teaching upper secondary
students in both learning environments, physical and online.
The instruments used in this research are survey, an
open-ended questionnaire, and a semi-structured interview
protocol. The findings of this research postulated that teaching
physics practical skills using virtual laboratories has its
limitations, however, the disruption caused by the COVID-19
pandemic has encouraged teachers to explore opportunities that
are more effective in teaching physics practical skills.
Nevertheless, the effectiveness of teaching physics practical
skills using virtual laboratories is confined by the inability to
provide students with a similar experience to the traditional
labs. Despite its limitations, teaching physics practical skills
using virtual laboratories is effective in supporting students
through memorizing and comprehending practical skills. The
research also revealed that teaching physics practical skills
using virtual laboratories is an effective method of encouraging
students to apply their existing knowledge and comprehension
to unfamiliar situations and draw connections to analyze the
physics phenomena.
Index Terms—Practical skills development, traditional and
non-traditional laboratories, scientific investigation.
Jasmine Jain is with the School of Education, Taylor‟s University,
Malaysia (e-mail: jasmine.jain@ taylors.edu.my).
Manmeet Kaur is with HELP International School, Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia (e-mail: manmeetkaur@kl.his.edu.my).
Cite: Jasmine Jain and Manmeet Kaur, "Moving Labs out of Labs: Teachers' Perceived Effectiveness of Virtual Laboratories during Pandemic School Closures," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 12, no. 11, pp. 1267-1274, 2022.
Copyright © 2022 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).