Виртуелне лабораторије као средство за унапређивање разумевања фундаменталних хемијских концепата код ученика основних школа

Previous research indicates that laboratory experimentation is considerably more effective than traditional receptive teaching in promoting the development of elementary school pupils’ understanding of fundamental chemistry concepts. Thus, for elementary schools that do not have a chemical laboratory, the use of virtual laboratories that are freely available from numerous educational websites was recommended. To compare the impact of virtual laboratory experimentation and traditional receptive teaching on the development of elementary school pupils’ understanding of fundamental chemistry concepts, a pedagogical experiment with parallel groups was conducted. The experiment was organized within the elaboration of the teaching topic Solutions, and it included 137 seventh-grade pupils (70 pupils in the experimental and 67 pupils in the control group). To assess the pupils’ understanding of the composition and preparation of solutions, a test comprised of six open-ended questions was used. The pre-testing showed that none of the pupils had previous knowledge related to this content. However, on the posttest, the experimental group archived a significantly higher overall percentage of correct answers (t (135) = 2.105, p = 0.037), which implies that virtual laboratories are highly effective in enhancing elementary school pupils’ understanding of fundamental chemistry concepts.