Effects of guided inquiry virtual and physical laboratories on conceptual understanding, inquiry performance, scientific inquiry self-efficacy, and enjoyment

Indonesia and many other developing countries have a vast youth population, yet limited facilities for physics learning. The major purposes of this study are to develop low-cost, technology-enhanced physical and virtual laboratories and to investigate their effects on various learning objectives, including conceptual understanding, inquiry performance, scientific inquiry self-efficacy, and enjoyment. The virtual laboratory (VL) used the physics education technology to simulate a pendulum, while the physical laboratory (PL) was a technology-enhanced physical laboratory utilizing the Camera Stopwatch and Smart Tools applications. In this quasiexperimental design, a total of 68 secondary school students in Indonesia were randomly assigned to the PL and VL settings. The participants conducted the pendulum experiment guided by an inquiry worksheet along with pre- and postconceptual tests, scientific inquiry self-efficacy, and enjoyment questionnaires. The result revealed that the guided inquiry-based VL was as effective as the PL for simple concepts, but was more effective for improving difficult concepts and scientific inquiry self-efficacy. Nevertheless, the PL group performed better on crucial inquiry activities, that is, planning, experimenting, and further improvement of the experiment. Moreover, both the PL and VL significantly promoted enjoyment. It was concluded that the PL and VL were successful for achieving different learning objectives.

Figure 1

(a) The enhancement of simple concepts for the PL and VL. (b) The enhancement of difficult concepts for the PL and VL.

Figure 2

Apparatus.

Figure 3

Smart tools app.

Figure 4

Camera stopwatch app.

Figure 5

Pendulum PhET.

Figure 6

(a) $L-T$ and (b) $L-T^2$ graphs.

Figure 7

$L-T$ Graph.

Figure 8

$L-T^2$ graph.