The effect of virtual laboratory applications on the achievement of secondary school students in teaching the granular structure of matter

The aim of this study is to compare the methods in the current curriculum and virtual laboratory applications in teaching the subject of particulate structure of matter to secondary school students and to compare the test results to be applied afterwards. Two public schools were selected as the sample considering the factors that may affect the success of the students. The sample of the research consists of 191 seventh grade students studying in two public schools. The research was carried out in a quasi-experimental structure according to a control group pretest-posttest design including experimental and control groups. The researcher used an achievement test as a data collection tool and the test was developed in the current study by first applying it to 157 eighth grade students. There are 24 questions in the developed achievement test. This achievement test was applied as a pre-test to 191 students divided into experimental and control groups in selected schools. In the following process, the subject of particulate structure of matter was taught to the control group by using the methods in the current curriculum and to the experimental group by using computer assisted education method and virtual laboratory applications by different teachers, taking into account the lesson plans prepared by the researcher. After the lectures, a post-test was applied to the groups. The results were analyzed in SPSS data analysis application. Independent groups t-test analysis was applied to the results obtained from the experimental and control groups. The results were analysed at p<0.05 significance level and it was examined whether the data obtained were significant or not. As a result of these data analyses, it was concluded that there was a significant difference in favour of the experimental group and that virtual laboratory applications were more effective in teaching the particulate structure of matter to secondary school students.