Book Chapter

Pedagogical Innovations in Education

ISBN: 978-602-6697-93-6, Page: 98-106
http://digital.library.ump.ac.id/view/divisions/BookChapterISTED/2021.html

Online Learning with Virtual Laboratory: The effectiveness of

Science Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Suci Nurhayati1*, Nunuk Suryani2, Suharno3

1*
ssucinh@gmail.com. Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta, Indonesia
2
nunuksuryani@staff.uns.ac.id. Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta, Indonesia
3
suharno@staff.uns.ac.id. Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta, Indonesia

Abstract
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a situation that brings impacts and challenges across all sectors. This also
has an impact on the field of education where learning is changing from conventional learning (face to face) to
distance learning (online). The application of online learning is still very common for students, especially in
Indonesia. The current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic creates great uncertainty in research and education.
Traditional laboratory-based disciplines including science education practicums were significantly affected by
the closure of laboratories. Experimentation is an important part of science, where students can gain valuable
experience in various techniques and develop the skills necessary for their future work in industry and academia.
Virtual laboratories have been used for teaching purposes in the natural sciences. Students can conduct
experiments at home and laboratory sessions go on as usual, despite the unforeseen circumstances of the
COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of implementing a Virtual
Laboratory in online science learning. The quantitative method used is Pretest-Posttest Control Group Design.
The subjects of this study were 44 junior high school students in class IX which were divided into an
experimental class of 22 students and a control class of 22 students. The analysis used in this study is an
independent sample t-Test where the subjects are students in different classes and are given two treatments,
namely in the experimental class, online learning with a virtual laboratory, while in the control class, online
learning is usually applied in schools. The results of the study can be concluded that virtual laboratory-based
multimedia products are effectively used to improve student learning outcomes, seen an increase in learning
outcomes and differences in the value of learning outcomes in the experimental class and control class.
Keywords: Virtual Laboratory, Science Learning, Online Learning, Pandemic Covid-19

INTRODUCTION
The world is experiencing a COVID-19 pandemic that is having a serious impact on students,
instructors, and educational organizations around the world (Mailizar et al., 2020).The
pandemic has caused schools, colleges, and universities around the world to close campuses
so students take distance learning (Taquero, 2020). Thus, learning changes from a
conventional educational environment to distance learning (PJJ) or online (in a network).
Distance learning is a learning program that focuses on pedagogy/andradogy, technology and
design of learning systems that are integrated effectively in conveying learning materials from
teachers to students through asynchronous and synchronous communication (Al-Arimi,
2014).

Online learning requires teachers or lecturers to be creative in creating a virtual learning

atmosphere without face to face that knows no distance or time limits so that the learning
abilities of each student can be absorbed by the delivery of online learning. In addition,
students, despite limited conditions considering that there is still an outbreak of the COVID-
19 virus, need to comply with and carry out online learning activities and be technology
literate when using them. It is even more difficult, especially because all material, both
theoretically and practically, is transferred to all online learning, which clearly reduces the
creativity of students' abilities, especially in materials that require practical activities
SUCI NURHAYATI, NUNUK SURYANI, SUHARNO
Online Learning with Virtual Laboratory: The effectiveness of
Science Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic
(Argaheni, 2020). This requires an effective new understanding effort from educators,
especially materials that require practical activities so that teaching and learning activities can
be more optimally interwoven with current online learning to obtain effective and quality
learning outcomes. Then they are able to be active and think at least the same as offline or
face-to-face learning in the laboratory.

Effective and quality learning must have the support of several elements, one of which is
adequate learning tools that can help students know, understand, and implement knowledge
and skills during current learning (Ayuningtyas et al., 2015). Efforts to increase the value of
students, it is necessary to have a strong push from aspects of learning activities and programs
that lead to the quality of competence and competitive value in learning. Therefore, the need
for learning activities that produce students able to use technology. One of them is by learning
that leads to contextual (Royani et al., 2018).

However, in reality, based on the initial observations that researchers made during online
learning, especially practical subjects such as dynamic electricity, educators felt confused in
carrying out practicals based on online learning, especially since this did not happen face-to-
face between educators and students. The difficulty of educators in giving practical work
assignments to students online makes the quality of the teaching method of educators decrease
slightly. So we need a new kind of innovation in finding definite solutions to learning during
the COVID-19 pandemic, online learning in terms of delivering practical lessons creates
obstacles such as students who cannot use measuring instruments and voltage currents
physically but only in the form of pictures that can be displayed. displayed through online
learning. In addition, because students do not see the learning objects described offline, they
do not explore the material. For this reason, a solution is needed to overcome the limitations
in the explanation of practical learning, especially the science subjects of dynamic electricity.

Therefore, it is necessary to have an effective way of learning that leads to the application of
virtual laboratory applications and support that allows students to minimize the ignorance of
students in learning and prove themselves personally through skills in using the virtual
laboratory media. According to (Gunawan & Liliasari, 2012) the use of computers can be
used to modify practicums and display complete practicums in virtual (virtual) form,
especially for abstract science concepts. This is in line with the opinion of (Hamida et al.,
2013) who explained that to carry out practical activities not only can be done in the
laboratory, students can also do it through a virtual laboratory. A virtual laboratory or
commonly referred to as a virtual laboratory is a series of tools, materials, and laboratories in
the form of computer software, which is operated by a computer and can simulate activities in
the laboratory as if the user was in a real laboratory (Kusumaningsih & Susanti, 2014).

According to (Carnevale, 2003) suggests that virtual practicum-based learning can provide
flexibility (flexibility) to the time and place in doing so and other obstacles such as the
unavailability of laboratories in schools can be overcome with virtual practicum activities.
However, virtual laboratories certainly cannot be used to replace practicum activities in actual
laboratories, because practicum activities in virtual laboratories cannot train students'
scientific process skills which will only be obtained from practical activities in actual
laboratories, but this virtual laboratory can be used as a medium. learning that can help
students understand the material to be studied (Nurrokhmah & Sunarto, 2013).Thus, it is very

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Online Learning with Virtual Laboratory: The effectiveness of
Science Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic
necessary to have a picture of an educator, especially in managing practicum learning
activities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

RESEARCH METHODS
1. Method
This research belongs to the type of quantitative research with the experimental
method of pretest-posttest control group design, the design of this study can be seen in
Figure 1 below.
Figure 1. Pretest Posttest Control Group Design
Pretest Treatment Posttest
O X1 O
O X2 O
The symbol O is the initial test and the final test which is carried out to
measure student learning outcomes before and after treatment. X is a symbol that 1

represents the treatment for the experimental class, namely online science learning
supported by aapplication virtual laboratory. While the symbol X is a treatment for the
2

control class, namely online science learning that is applied in schools without the help
of a virtual laboratory.
2. Subject of The Research
This research was conducted at Sunan Ampel Junior High School Malang in
class IX odd semester of the 2020/2021 school year. A total of 44 students were
selected according to the provisions or sampling purpose. The class used for the study
was class IX A with 22 students as the experimental class and class IX B with 22
students as the control class.
3. Instrument
In obtaining research data, the test instrument for learning outcomes of mastery
of science concepts was used in dynamic electricity material. The learning outcomes
test is in the form of multiple choice questions with 20 items.
4. Data Analysis
Research data processing began with statistical tests in the form of normality
tests and homogeneity tests. Next, a two-mean difference test was conducted to test the
significance level of the difference in the mean scores of the two classes (experimental
class and control class) using the T-test.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Description of Dynamic Electricity Virtual Laboratory Media

After going through the expert validation stage, both on dynamic electrical materials and
validation onmedia virtual laboratory the developed. Then limited trials and trials on a wider
scale were carried out to improve themedia virtual laboratory. Table 1 describes themedia
virtual laboratory that has been developed.

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Online Learning with Virtual Laboratory: The effectiveness of
Science Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Table 1. Description of Media Virtual Laboratory Dynamic Electricity
No. Media Media Visual Explaination
Content
1. Main Menu Consists of 5 meetings in the form of
dynamic electrical sub-materials

2. Meetings Each meeting consists of 5 menus,

namely apperception, practicum,
material, sample questions, and
practice questions

3. Apperception Contains animations related to sub-

materials dynamic electricity to
provoke students' memory and
interest.

4. The Prakticum Contains a practical simulation in

the form of virtual laboratory a
simplethat can be operated by
students.

5. The Material Contains material related to the

dynamic electrical sub-material to
provoke the memory and interest of
students.

6. Sample Contain examples of questions and

Questions their discussion.

7. Practice Contain questions where when

Questions students answer incorrectly, the
correct discussion will appear and
when students answer correctly,
words of appreciation will appear.

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Online Learning with Virtual Laboratory: The effectiveness of
Science Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Analysis of Effectiveness Test Results was
Research carried out through online learning in the form of zoom or google classroom which
required educators to deliver material there. Furthermore, the research subjects included 48
classes of IX-A and XI-B. The students have been divided into class IX-A totaling 24 people
and class IX-B as many as 24 people. The research was conducted for 3 weeks or a total of 6
meetings. During the process of research activities, researchers will give a preliminary test
and a final test to find out how far they can understand the material that has been given. The
following are the results of the students' learning outcomes in thepretestin Table 2 below.

Table 2. Results of Data Acquisition Pretest in the Experiment Class and Control
Class N Min Max Mean Std. Deviation
Experiment 24 50 75 65,2 6,67
Control 24 50 75 63,9 6,91

Based on the results shown in Table 2 above, it can be explained that the provisional mean
value of the pretest between the two classes (experimental class) and control class) the results
are not much different. It can be explained that the average value of the results pretest
students'for the experimental class is 65.2, where the minimum value obtained is 50 and the
maximum value obtained is 75 with a standard deviation of 6.67. In the control class the mean
value obtained is 63.9, where the minimum value obtained is 50 and the maximum value
obtained is 75 with a standard deviation of 6.91. Furthermore, the following is the acquisition
of data to determine the acquisition of student learning outcomes after being given treatment
and tested through a final test (posttest) in Table 3 below.

Table 3. Results of Data Acquisition Posttest on Experiment Class and Control

Class N Min Max Mean Std. Deviation
Experiment 24 70 95 83,5 7,58
Control 24 55 90 75,2 10,88

Based on the results obtained in Table 3 above, it can be explained that after being given
treatment, it was then tested by posttest the mean value between the experimental class and
the control class. have differences. It can be explained that the average value of the posttest
results in the experimental class is 83.5, where the minimum value is 70 and the maximum
value is 95 with a standard deviation of 7.58. While the posttest results obtained in the control
class were 75.2, where the minimum value was 55 and the maximum value was 90 with a
standard deviation of 10.88.

Thus, analytically, the acquisition of data results in the two classes shows that the learning
between the two classes has a significant difference. This can be interpreted that when
students are given treatment during science learning of dynamic electrical materials during the
COVID-19 pandemic, facilitated bymedia, they virtual laboratory can more freely facilitate
students in carrying out practical activities so that they understand the material better than
doing online learning without being facilitated by virtual. laboratories.

Furthermore, to find out the data acquisition for the two classes is normally distributed, it is
necessary to do some kind of calculation using SPSS version 25 with thetechnique Shapiro-
Wilk. The distribution of the two classes is said to be normal after a trial is carried out to find

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Online Learning with Virtual Laboratory: The effectiveness of
Science Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic
out how much normality is using the Normality test. The following is the acquisition of
normality test data for the experimental class and the control class in Table 4 below.

Table 4. Data Acquisition of Normality Test in Experiment Class and Control Class
Shapiro-Wilk
Class Skor of Posttest
Statistic df Sig
Posttest Learning Outcomes Experimental
Class ,936 24 ,131

Posttest Learning Outcomes Control Class ,928 24 ,088

Based on Table 4 it is known that posttest learning outcomes SMP Sunan Ampel with a
significance value (sig) for all good data on the Shapiro Wilk test, namely the significance
value of the pretest learning outcomes of experimental class students is greater than 0.05 or
0.131>0.05 and the significance value of the control pretest is 0.105 or 0.088>0, 05. So it can
be concluded that the posttest research data on student learning outcomes is normally
distributed. Furthermore, the acquisition of homogeneity test data to determine the variance of
learning outcomes data in the experimental class and control class is in Table 5 below.

Table 5. Obtaining Homogeneity Test Data in Experiment Class and Control Class
Levene Df1 Df2 Sig.
Statistic
Learning Outcomes of 0,032 1 46 0,147
SMP Sunan Ampel

Based on the data in Table 5, the results of statistical tests with the help of the SPSS 25
program obtained the significance value of learning outcomes at Sunan Ampel Junior High
School of 0.147 or 0.147> 0.05. So it can be concluded that the posttest scores of the control
and experimental class students at SMP Sunan Ampel came from the same or homogeneous
variance. After calculating the results of the analysis data in both classes, both normality test
and homogeneity test, the next step is to prove the hypothesis of the final result of the t-test
with the SPSS version 25 program. The following is the acquisition of the t-test data in Table
6 below.

Table 6. Test Results Independent Samples Test

Independent Samples Test
Levene’s Test for Equality of Variances t-test for Equality of Means
F Sig. T Sig (2-tailed)
Learning Outcomes of 2,172 0,147 3,077 0,004
SMP Sunan Ampel

Based on table 6 the results of statistical tests using the SPSS 25 program, learning outcomes
for science at SMP Sunan Ampel obtained a significance level of 0.004 smaller than 0.05
(0.004 < 0, 05), or tcount > t table i learning outcomes of 3,077 > 2,060, 2,895 > 2,074 then
Ho is rejected and Ha is accepted or there is a difference in mean between the experimental
class and the control class student learning outcomes. The assumption obtained is that it is

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Online Learning with Virtual Laboratory: The effectiveness of
Science Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic
concluded that online learning facilitated by a virtual laboratory on dynamic electrical
materials is effective in improving student learning outcomes compared to online learning
on dynamic electricity materials without being facilitated by a virtual laboratory.

The test results are in line with the research of (Masril et al., 2019) by applying Virtual
Laboratory Assisted Discovery Learning to Improve Physics Competence, showing that the
learning outcomes obtained in the experimental class are 75.50 and the control class is 72.5.
The experimental class here applies Virtual Laboratory Assisted Discovery Learning, while
the control class applies conventional learning.

Then the results of research from (Yahya et al., 2019) with the use of a virtual laboratory on
the concept of vibration and waves. The implementation of physics virtual laboratory media
on vibration and wave material can improve students' understanding of concepts. Improved
understanding of physics concepts of experimental group students with an average post-test
score of 75.00 which is better than the control group with an average post-test score of 60.25
in the sub-material of vibration waves.

Finally, the results of research from (Br Saragih & Utami, 2019) are applying problem based
instruction learning strategies with virtual laboratory media on student learning outcomes.
The use of Virtual Laboratory media supports this PBI model well. By using the Virtual
Laboratory media, it can support the way of thinking and the enthusiasm of students to learn.
Students are able to find new things, solve problems using virtual laboratory media that they
have never done before. Students do not only know the theory but also participate directly
which is able to provide experience and abilities for the students themselves.

CONCLUSION
The results of this study indicate that online learning assisted by a virtual laboratory on
dynamic electricity practicum material is effective in improving student learning outcomes
compared to online learning of dynamic electrical practicum material without the help of a
virtual laboratory. During dynamic electric practicum learning, learning that uses a virtual
laboratory is better and easier for students to experiment so that they are innovatively
absorbed in the knowledge they gain compared to only online learning on explanations in the
virtual lab. The results obtained at the time before (pretest) and after (posttest) treatment
showed that the learning outcomes during the simulation of the two classes experienced
adifference significant. It can be stated that the difference in the results obtained by the two is
the experimental result before (pretest) 65.2, where the minimum value obtained is 50 and the
maximum value obtained is 75 with a standard deviation of 6.67. The results of the
experimental class after (posttest) were 83.5, where the minimum value was 70 and the
maximum value was 95 with a standard deviation of 7.58.

While the results of the control class before (pretest) amounted to 63.9, where the minimum
value obtained was 50 and the maximum value obtained was 75 with a standard deviation of
6.91. The control class results after (posttest) were 75.2, where the minimum value was 55
and the maximum value was 90 with a standard deviation of 10.88. Then after fulfilling the
results of normality and homogeneity tests. On this occasion, the t-test tcount > t table i
learning outcomes of 3,077 > 2,060, 2,895 > 2,074 then Ho is rejected and Ha is accepted or
there is a difference in mean between the experimental class and control class student learning
outcomes. Thus, it is really necessary for educators, especially practicum learning,

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Online Learning with Virtual Laboratory: The effectiveness of
Science Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic
considering the current pandemic is still limited to face-to-face activities, especially learning
activities. For the sake of fluency and activeness of students in online learning, especially on
materials that require practical implementation with the use ofassistance virtual laboratory.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the Sunan Ampel Junior High School which has given the opportunity
for researchers to conduct research for 2 months. Also, the researchers would like to thank the
thesis supervisor, Prof. Dr. Nunuk Suryani, M. Pd and Dr. Suharno, M. Pd who has been
willing to provide advice, direction and guidance in a good systematic way so that I can finish
this article.

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Science Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic
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