Impact of virtual chemistry laboratory instruction on pre-service science teachers’ scientific process skills

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the impact of virtual chemistry laboratory instruction on pre-service science teachers’ scientific process skills. For this purpose, eight laboratory activities related to chemical kinetic, chemical equilibrium, thermochemistry, acids-bases, and electrochemistry were developed. Those activities were performed in virtual laboratory environment by the pre-service teachers in the experimental group and in the real laboratory environment by c the preservice teachers in the control group during eight weeks. Scientific process skills test developed by Burns, Okey and Wise [3], and translated into Turkish by Ates and Bahar [2] was used before and after the instructions for data collection. According to results, while there was no significant difference between pre-test mean scores (U=133.500, p>0.05), significant difference between post-test mean scores was found in favour of experimental group (U=76.000, p<0.05). In addition, while no significant difference between pre-test mean scores for each sub-dimension was found, significant difference between post-test mean scores for designing investigation and formulating hypothesis skills was found in favour of experimental group.