Self-efficacy is an important determinant in successfully attempting a task. In the area of education, self-efficacy plays a crucial role in causing behavioral changes, resulting in enhanced performance over the course of learning. In chemistry education, students often develop anxiety towards performing experiments due to the perceived negative outcomes resulting from lack of understanding and improper experimentation. This anxiety negatively impacts the self-efficacy of students in performing laboratory experiments. We define student-held beliefs about their experimental skills as ’experimental self-efficacy’ (ESE), and examine the four prominent factors that impact ESE in chemical laboratories. Through the development of an instrument, this work characterizes ESE and the impact of pre-laboratory interventions such as exposure to virtual laboratories (VL) on ESE and conceptual knowledge of students. Furthermore, analysis using statistical techniques such as t -tests and dissimilarity matrices reveal the positive impact of VL in enhancing students’ ESE.

中文翻译：

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化学实验教育中的虚拟实验平台及其对实验自我效能感的影响

自我效能是成功尝试任务的重要决定因素。在教育领域，自我效能在引起行为改变方面起着至关重要的作用，从而提高学习过程中的表现。在化学教育中，由于缺乏理解和不正确的实验导致感知到的负面结果，学生经常对进行实验产生焦虑。这种焦虑会对学生进行实验室实验的自我效能产生负面影响。我们将学生持有的关于他们实验技能的信念定义为“实验自我效能”（ESE），并检查影响化学实验室 ESE 的四个主要因素。通过开发仪器，这项工作描述了 ESE 和实验室前干预措施的影响，例如接触虚拟实验室 (VL) 对 ESE 和学生概念知识的影响。此外，使用统计技术（如 t 检验和相异矩阵）的分析揭示了 VL 在提高学生 ESE 方面的积极影响。