The effect of using virtual environment experiments in force and energy unit on 7th grade students' achievement, science and technology attitudes

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of experiments conducted in virtual and real environments on middle school students' academic achievement, attitudes towards science course and attitudes towards technology in the "Force and Energy" unit. In the study, simultaneous nested research design, one of the mixed research types, was used. The study was conducted with a total of 30 students, 16 in the experimental group and 14 in the control group, who were studying in a public school in Elazığ province in 2023-2024. During the 8-week research period, while the "Force and Energy" unit in the experimental group was taught with virtual environment experiments designed using Algodoo software, the "Force and Energy" unit in the control group was taught by designing real environment experiments. The quantitative data of the study were collected with the "Force and Motion Subject Academic Achievement Test", "Scale of Attitudes Towards Science" and "Scale of Students' Attitudes Towards Technology", while the qualitative data were collected with semi-structured interviews. Quantitative data were analyzed using the licensed SPSS 25 package program, Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test for related samples and Mann-Whitney U Test for independent samples. Qualitative data were analyzed and interpreted using content analysis method. According to the results of the study, when the pretest and posttest academic achievement test scores of the experimental and control group students were compared, a significant difference was found in favor of the posttest (z=-3.421, p<0.05 for the experimental group; z=-3.053, p<0.05 for the control group). However, no statistically significant difference was observed between the posttest scores of the two groups (U=108.5, p>0.05). There was no significant difference between the pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental and control group students' attitude towards science scale test (z=-.853, p>0.05 for the experimental group; z=-0.942, p>0.05 for the control group). There was also no statistically significant difference between the post-test scores of the attitude towards science scale test of the experimental and control groups (U=102.00, p>0.05). When the pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental and control group students' attitude towards technology scale test were compared, no significant difference was found (z=-.052, p>0.05 for the experimental group; z=-1.855, p>0.05 for the control group). There was no statistically significant difference between the posttest scores of the attitude towards science scale test of the experimental and control groups (U=94.000, p>0.05). The analysis of the qualitative data showed that the experimental and control group students thought that experiments in science lessons increased their success and helped them acquire new knowledge. It was also concluded that students found the lessons supported by experiments more memorable. Students stated that experiments should be included more in science lessons. In addition, the qualitative data obtained from the experimental and control groups showed that students' interest, desire and motivation increased when experiments were conducted in science lessons. Although the students in the experimental group stated that virtual experiments are a very good opportunity to observe experiments that cannot be done in real life, they pointed out that virtual experiments create a lack of emotion. They also stated that virtual experiments are advantageous in terms of not experiencing material shortages. In the final interviews, more than half of the students in the experimental group preferred hybrid experimental environments in which virtual and real experiments were used together, while the majority of the students in the control group argued that real environment experiments should be used. Keywords: Science, Virtual Experiment, Algodoo, Academic Achievement, Science Attitude, Technology Attitude