To date, the efficacy of virtual experiments is not well-understood. To better understand what differences may exist between a hands-on learning environment and a virtual learning environment, three experiments were chosen for investigation. For each experiment, approximately half of the students completed a hands-on version of the experiment, and…

To date, few general chemistry laboratory studies have included affective measures despite calls for more research on aspects of this domain. This shortage of studies may be partially due to the scarcity of affective measures that have been designed for, or tested in, the college laboratory setting. To provide measures for use in this environment,…

Background: Most policy doctrines promote the use of scientific inquiry in the K-12 classroom, but good inquiry is hard to implement, particularly for schools with fiscal and safety constraints and for teachers struggling with understanding how to do so. Purpose: In this paper, we present the design of a multi-user virtual environment (MUVE)…

This research explored the challenge of how students might successfully perform real laboratory experiments over the Internet without being in a laboratory. Numerous distance learning environments were surveyed, and the effectiveness and disadvantages of laboratory facilities currently available over the Internet were assessed. Full and part-time…