The third online academic seminar of the Spring Semester of 2021-2022 will be given by Dr. Hasan Özgür Kapıcı. The title of his talk is “Using Hands-On and Virtual Laboratories Alone or Together―Which Works Better for Acquiring Knowledge and Skills?”

Although hands-on laboratory experiments are traditionally used in schools, virtual laboratories have entered today’s classrooms, due to their specific affordances. In this talk, the effects of using hands-on and virtual laboratories in isolation to two different combinations on
middle school (7th grade) students’ acquisition of conceptual knowledge and inquiry skills will be presented. Participants were 143 seventh-grade students from a public school. They were enrolled in four different seventh-grade science classes, all taught by a single teacher. Pre-test and post-test responses were compared to investigate participants’ acquisition of knowledge and inquiry skills. As a general conclusion, the results of the study, together with similar findings
from other studies, suggest that virtual and hands-on laboratories may have complementary affordances.

Bio:
Hasan Özgür Kapıcı is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Mathematics and Science Education at Bogazici University. He holds B. Sc., M. Sc., and Ph. D. degrees in science education. He conducts empirical studies on technology-supported inquiry-based learning environments, especially virtual laboratories and simulations. Recently, he is also interested in eye tracking in research on multimedia learning.

 Please click for the Zoom link.