Research exploring students’ learning from physical and virtual labs has suggested that on the whole, students learn science content just as well, if not better from virtual labs as they do from physical labs. However, the affordances of physical labs might support the learning of specific skills and competencies that are just as crucial for learning science. In this study, we examined students’ discussions as they worked on physical and virtual labs to better understand how they learned from each, and the kinds of learning that each type of lab supported. One hundred and fifteen 6th grade students from three science teachers’ classes participated in this study. We examined audio data from all available groups as they engaged in physical and virtual labs (n = 14 groups; physical, n = 8 groups; virtual, n = 6 groups). We found that students conducting physical labs engaged in a significantly higher proportion of talk related to setting up apparatus and taking measurements and calculating outputs. Students who performed virtual labs, on the other hand, engaged in significantly more discussions about making predictions and understanding patterns of relationships between variables, and interpreting science phenomena. While students in the Virtual condition engaged in discussions that were more focused on the relationships between science ideas, students in the Physical condition learned science practices related to planning and carrying out investigations that are equally valuable. Our findings suggest that learning from one experimental modality may complement and supplement the relative weaknesses of the other, indicating a need for strategically combining the two. Implications and future directions are discussed.

中文翻译：

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支持中学生的科学演讲：物理实验室和虚拟实验室的比较

一项探索学生从物理和虚拟实验室学习的研究表明，总体而言，学生从虚拟实验室学习的科学内容也一样好，即使从虚拟实验室获得的科学知识也比从物理实验室获得的更好。但是，物理实验室的费用可能会支持对学习科学同样重要的特定技能和能力的学习。在本研究中，我们检查了学生在物理和虚拟实验室中进行的讨论，以更好地了解他们从每个实验室中学到的知识以及每种实验室支持的学习类型。来自三个理科教师班的115名6年级学生参加了这项研究。我们检查了来自物理实验室和虚拟实验室的所有可用组的音频数据（n = 14组；物理组，n= 8组；虚拟，ñ= 6组）。我们发现，进行物理实验室的学生从事与设置仪器，进行测量和计算输出有关的谈话比例要高得多。另一方面，进行虚拟实验室的学生则进行了更多的讨论，包括进行预测和理解变量之间关系的模式以及解释科学现象。在处于虚拟状态的学生进行讨论时，他们更侧重于科学观念之间的关系，而处于物理状态的学生学习了与计划和进行调查同样有价值的科学实践。我们的发现表明，从一种实验方式中学习可能会补充和补充另一种实验方式的相对劣势，表示有必要在战略上将两者结合起来。讨论了含义和未来方向。