Virtual and Physical Laboratory Applications on the Verification of Ohm’s Law and Undergraduate Physics Students’ Performance and Retention in Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated virtual and physical laboratory applications on the verification of Ohm’s law and undergraduate physics students’ performance and retention in Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, Port Harcourt. Two research questions and two hypotheses were formulated to guide this study. The design for the study was quasi experimental of the type, pretest, post-test control group design. The population of the study comprised of all year 2 undergraduate physics students of Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, numbering one hundred and eight (108). Census Sampling Technique was adopted since same number of the population of the study of one hundred and eight (108) year 2 undergraduate physics students made up the sample size. Two experimental groups and one control group were used for the study. The instrument used for this study is   Physics Practical Test for the Verification of Ohm’s Law (PPTVOL). A reliability index of 0.72 was obtained for (PPTVOL). Experimental group 1 and experimental group 2 were taught practical Physics using a virtual laboratory and a physical laboratory respectively while the control group was taught using the demonstration method. Data were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions while Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Post Hoc Test were used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that students taught with virtual laboratory had higher performance and retention than their counterparts taught with physical laboratory and demonstration method; it was found also that there is no significant difference in the performance and retention scores of students taught with physical laboratory and those taught with demonstration method. It was recommended among others that virtual laboratory method of teaching physics practical should be included in the physics curriculum of universities, curriculum planners should create a forum to raise experts who will be educating university teachers on the use of virtual laboratories and government and other stakeholders in education should equip the physical laboratories both in equipment and personnel adequately.