A Novel Approach to an Online Microbiology Experiment Yields Greater Student Success

ABSTRACT

An increase in online science course offerings requires a closer evaluation of the online laboratory experience. While it has been established that students can successfully learn from online laboratory simulations, there is a lack of knowledge regarding factors that impact student success. Grounded in the constructivist learning theory, a unique laboratory design was utilized to determine whether collaboration during an online microbiology lab experiment had an impact on student success. Additionally, the impacts of demographic factors were investigated. This study concluded that collaboration had a significantly positive impact on student success while demographics such as age, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status did not have an impact. Although this illuminates the need for online lab developers to create collaborative science laboratory simulations that more closely mimic the traditional laboratory experience, more research is needed to elucidate additional factors that impact student success in the online science laboratory.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to acknowledge the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) for the use of their BioInteractive Bacterial Identification Virtual Lab experiment. Additionally, the author would like to thank Dr. Grooms from the Regent University School of Education for the use of the self-perceived learning survey.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, N.D. The data are not publicly available to do the limitations that were set by the Institutional Review Boards of the participating institutions and the potential for compromising the privacy of the research participants. Link to Data for Request