Impact of Virtual Laboratory on the Achievement of Secondary School Chemistry Students in Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Collaborative Environments

Abstract

The study investigated the impact of virtual laboratory on the achievements of secondaryschool chemistry students in homogeneous and heterogeneous collaborative settings inMinna, Niger state, Nigeria. Three hypotheses were formulated, analyzed and tested at0.05 alpha level. Stratified sampling technique was used to select 60 Senior SecondaryClass Two (SS II) Chemistry Students. The subjects were stratified along gender and abilitylevels. Sixty students were randomly selected from two secondary schools in Minna,Nigeria. Thirty students (male, n = 15; female, n = 15) were selected from each school.Pretest, posttest, and experimental group design was employed. Experts validated 20-item multiple-choice Chemistry Achievement Test (CAT) was used for data collection. Areliability coefficient of 0.91 was obtained from the pilot testing using Kuder Richardson(KR-20). ANCOVA and Sidak post-hoc statistics were used for testing the hypotheses at0.05 level of significance. The results showed that: (a) students in homogeneous abilitygrouping taught Chemistry using virtual laboratory instruction in collaborative settingperformed better than their counterpart taught Chemistry in heterogeneous groupingcomposition; (b) female students in homogeneous group performed better than theircounterparts in heterogeneous groups; (c) the higher achiever students in homogeneousgroups outperformed those in heterogeneous groups. Based on these findings, it wasrecommended that the use of virtual laboratory instruction in homogeneous gender andability level grouping in collaborative setting should be encouraged in teaching practicalchemistry at senior secondary schools in Nigeria.