Lab activities are characteristic of life science education. In the current study, we investigate whether pre-lab modules can improve students’ understanding of the theories and experimental procedures associated with lab activities. Such effects were studied in context of an expository lab on gene mapping in biology undergraduate education. An experimental group of 126 students had access to an online pre-lab module to prepare for the lab activity; a control group of 90 students did not have access to this pre-lab module. The data revealed that students who studied the pre-lab module had a better understanding of the gene mapping theory, at the onset of the class, when compared with the control group. Additionally, these students appeared to ask fewer questions on what needed to be done in the lab, suggesting more awareness of the experimental procedure. Further, students who studied the online pre-lab module showed greater understanding of the theory in their lab reports. These findings suggest that students’ understanding of background theory and its relation to practice can readily be improved by enriching existing expository labs with pre-lab modules that contain information and questions on the complex conceptual information relevant to the lab experiment.

实验室活动是生命科学教育的特征。在当前的研究中，我们调查实验前模块是否可以提高学生对与实验活动相关的理论和实验程序的理解。此类影响是在生物学本科教育中关于基因作图的说明性实验室的背景下进行研究的。一个实验小组的126名学生可以访问在线的实验前模块，为实验活动做准备。对照组（90名学生）无法使用此实验前模块。数据显示，与对照组相比，学习实验前模块的学生在课堂开始时对基因作图理论有了更好的了解。此外，这些学生似乎对在实验室需要完成的工作提出的问题更少，建议您对实验程序有更多的了解。此外，研究在线实验前模块的学生在实验报告中显示出对该理论的更多理解。这些发现表明，通过用包含实验信息的实验室前模块充实现有的说明性实验室，可以容易地提高学生对背景理论及其与实践的关系的理解。