Evaluation of an Interactive Personalised Virtual Lab in Secondary Schools

Virtual labs are increasingly used for STEM education as they enable students to conduct experiments in a controlled environment at their own pace. While there was much research on personalisation in technology enhanced learning, most existing virtual labs lack personalisation features. This chapter presents results from a small-scale pilot from two secondary schools in Ireland, that was conducted to evaluate the Atomic Structure interactive personalised virtual lab as part of the NEWTON project. The research methodology followed a multidimensional pedagogical assessment approach, to evaluate the benefits of the lab in terms of learning outcomes, learner motivation and lab usability. The students were divided between an experimental group that learned with the lab and a control group that attended a traditional class. The results analysis show that the experimental group outperformed the control group in terms of both learning achievement and motivation dimensions such as interest, confidence, engagement and enjoyment.