3.2.4. Results and Discussion
Section 2:
Table 2 indicates that most experts agreed on the importance of the proposed OVLP to real laboratory experiments.
The reasons for their responses for this section of “strongly agree” were also collected. One of the experts said that “The system is capable of handling multiple domains. I think it is very useful for lifelong learning that anyone, anywhere, can study a domain that interests them.” In addition, another expert stated that “This type of virtual lab can remove the distance and save time for the educators and learners and also cost-effective.”
In addition, some of the experts made comments for improving the current version of the platform. One of them described that “It is quite complex that requires time to understand how to use. But the system is complete.” Another expert pointed out that “For all items (1–4), the proposed system’s objective is important in education. However, the implementation has to be well designed before building the system. The current system still needs more technical improvement and to be more organized.” The other expert claimed that “different academic domains have specific requirements for conducting experiments. Hence, I am not sure whether the platform has the required flexibility and scalability to meet the differences.” In conclusion, most of their opinions and feedbacks related to the platform were important for real laboratory education.
Section 3:
Table 3 showed that the experts confirmed that the proposed platform was useful and helpful for instructors in teaching real laboratory experiments to create and publish the OVLs without web programming difficulties, enabling them to provide students with OVL multi learning styles with pre-set OVL contents.
Some of the experts shared their opinions for this section. One of them said that “An instructor can use different multimedia contents on the same topic, the flexibility of using diverse content can make the teaching more efficient, understandable to the learners and provide motivation and multi-learning to them. Using this type of easy instructional guide, any instructor can develop and deliver content without enough programming knowledge.” Another one stated that “The proposed system is useful for teachers, especially in preparing the student. However, the current system, especially the interface, is still not user friendly, not really well organized (e.g., no Navigation pane and sitemap that would make users easy to track where they are in the website).” On the other hand, one of the experts mentioned that “This system is multi-functional. However, I think it is difficult for a teacher who uses it for the first time to master it fully. Until you get used to it, you may need some support, such as making it simple to use.” Besides, one of the experts claimed that “To support different learning styles, instructors might need to create different teaching modes for the same contents. Having to do so might refrain the instructors from using the system because of time-consuming.” In summary, most of the experts’ feedback reported that the platform was beneficial for instructors in schools and universities to teach real laboratory experiments.
Section 4: As shown in
Table 4, most experts assured that all the proposed functions of the OVLP were useful for OVL.
Most of the experts gave feedbacks that the platform function tools were useful for OVL. For example, one of them said that “Image, video, simulations, infographics, and other diverse contents provide the opportunities for multi-dimensional learning styles, especially, images, videos, and simulations are powerful contents to create an immersive learning environment for the learners. Learners will not feel boring. Submitting assignments and reports, receiving necessary notices, instruction, discussion with peers and instructors makes the teaching and learning more flexible and acceptable.” Another one stated that “I think the functionality of this system is useful. However, as I wrote before, I think it is important that teachers can use these functions and really create a useful library when they use them in actual educational settings.” On the other hand, in short, one of them mentioned that providing various education domains in one platform was useful, and all functions were also essential. He also presented suggestions for improving some tools like user interface and merging some functions in one. Besides, another expert claimed that the “online help case is sort of similar to the forum. YouTube is a good source of videos for learning purposes. What is the advantage of video on OVL over YouTube videos? How about using YouTube as a video database and the OVL for organizing the video by categories?” Another expert mentioned that “In glossary is ok but consider using Ontology style where there are relationships and multilevel concepts. For image/infographic/video-instead of putting into a category only you may try to add a tag such as I may have about #java #video #string and array and the user can search by tag. The category may have the hierarchy (Ontology).” In summary, most of the experts’ opinions related to the proposed function tools were important for OVLs.
Section 5:
Table 5 indicates a more reasonable relationship between the proposed platform and some sustainable development goals related to education, health, and the environment. The experts confirmed that the OVLP was supportive of such sustainable development aspects.
Experts’ reasons for their responses for this section related to “strongly agree” were also collected. One of them said, “Of course, virtual experiments can save pupils and instructors from the harmful chemicals and other harmful emissions. It can be eco-savvy and environmental friendly. Many topics could be taught fully through virtual labs. But there are also many experiments which are needed to be tested and done in a real lab environment. In this case, virtual lab contents can provide some ideas to do the action in the practical experiment.” Another one pointed out that “OVLP might encourage students to maintain their interest in lifelong learning.” Additionally, the other said that “As for sustainability, I think it depends on how well we can build environment (library and quiz and...etc.) that can be used properly.” On the other hand, one of them described that “I do not really understand the correlation between the system and the sustainable development requirement.” In conclusion, most of the experts’ feedback confirmed that the platform was considered a supportive system for sustainable development goals.
Section 6: As illustrated in
Table 6, most experts approved the proposed platform’s current version design to be acceptable.
The experts reported the following comments:
“The OVLP is easy to use for teachers-for the first time, it is difficult to use; for example, creating a quiz and choices are difficult. For example, 20 questions with 4 choices would require 80 actions; to complete creation.”
“Creation procedure takes several steps which are currently separated. I think they could be group into one screen to help the composer create content with ease and in a complete manner.”
“I’m curious about the details—for example, the position of a button (ex. The Admin dashboard) maybe second from the top on some screens, and a button’s position may be at the bottom of others. If it is a frequently used button, I think it would be good to display it at the top of all buttons. It would be better if I could fix some of the details.”
“Item 1. It’s colorful and unique, item 2. Some functions do not work, item 3. It’s easy but less organized, therefore not really user-friendly. The navigation pane and sitemap would be very helpful, and item 4. The action buttons placed on two sides of the page and the guide need to be more eye catchy.”
“Yes, it is simple, sequential, and easy to follow the instructions and could be operated without much hassle.”
Section 7: Four experts shared their suggestions for improving the overall platform as follows:
“It is a good system and will be greater if designed with a more user-friendly interface.”
“You may add the idea of both asynchronous and synchronous distance teaching and learning concept. I think this platform represents both aspects.”
“Workflow mechanism might improve the User Experience for the platform.”
“Have you considered mobile phone users? The recent day, many students use a mobile phone, so please design for mobile phone user friendly. All the functions are useful, only a few comments like “topic/post/comment” please use something like tree view for make it easier to understand the hierarchy, If the contents like photos, infographics can be share when creating the lab so the user no need to re-upload again, the virtual lab file using .swf? I think this is quite outdated now as many browsers do not support it anymore and we can show the link of YouTube video instead of upload the video will save you much space required.”
In summary, the usability evaluation results showed that the majority of ICT experts in education and university instructors have the same perspective that the current version of the OVLP can be used to support learning of real laboratory experiments, of which at least the developed functions were suitable for these domains. Some participants gave improvements related to aspects of the user interface and platform functions. However, the current usability evaluation detected some practical issues related to the proposed platform such as the design of the user interface, simplicity to use, less organization, and some technical points for some functions.
While many academic online laboratory platforms exist related to the proposed platform, some of the literature focused on developed platforms for one domain, such as [
20], proposed a virtual experimental platform for chemistry laboratory experiments, and [
21] suggests a virtual laboratory platform innovate engineering education. Moreover, [
22] presented a virtual experiment platform for students in the civil engineering specialty. Additionally, [
23] presented a digital circuit virtual laboratory. Compared with this literature, our developed platform is a generic online virtual laboratory platform suitable for multi-domains to help instructors in schools and universities create and teach OVLs of real laboratory experiments. On the other hand, this literature focused on student learning aspects and did not focus on developing a generic framework that assists instructors in creating, integrating, and using OVL for real laboratories experiments. The need for technical expertise in order to create and develop OVL experiments is found challenging by instructors from non-technical domains. The generic platform for helping such instructors carry out laboratory experiments will definitely support the use of the OVL in schools and universities. Additionally, the proposed OVLP is a specialized platform that includes more features related to learning real lab experiments from a pedagogy perspective. This feature includes increased visual learning for OVL content, such as scientific image library, infographics library, video library, glossary with multimedia. Additionally, there are other pedagogy aspects, for example, the OVL general objectives, educational aims for each virtual experiment, E-activities, self-assessment, and a summary of each experiment.
The current study was conducted with a small sample size of 10 participants (university instructor = 5 and ICT experts in education = 5) but it is still acceptable for usability evaluation. However, implementing this study with a larger sample size will maybe generate more precise results.