Role Of Virtual Lab in Inculcating Scientific Attitude & Self Efficacy: Meta Analysis

Abstract

In this digitized world, the potential of technology in education is beyond our imagination as it has brought a 360-degree revolution to the education system. To achieve promising outcomes, a dire need arises to amalgamate technology with traditional methods of teaching and learning. Both academicians and researchers endorse the use of technology in pedagogy for theory as well as lab-based courses. With the constant tech invasion, it's likely that physical laboratories will lead to an obvious transition into virtual laboratories by facilitating an avant garde experience for students. It can mitigate the high costs of procurement of apparatus in traditional labs and can support distance and blended learning. Researchers have proven that virtual labs help students to save time, effort and keep abreast with the technological development in this digitized era. As per various studies, virtual laboratory enhances critical thinking, scientific attitude, science process skill, self-efficacy, and problem-solving abilities. As per various studies, virtual laboratory enhances critical thinking, scientific attitude, science process skill, self-efficacy, and problem-solving abilities. This meta-analysis is an attempt to observe the impact of virtual laboratories on the scientific attitude and self-efficacy inculcated among students across science subjects and different measurement methods. Key contributions of the study were: 1) 58% of the studies concluded that a virtual laboratory is more effective in developing scientific attitude. 2) 64% of the studies reported that virtual laboratories activities outweigh the physical laboratory activities in creating self-efficacy.