Practicals are an important component of education in STEM disciplines. They not only teach physical laboratory skills but also time management and downstream analytical skills. However, with growing enrolments, there are pressures on the availability of physical laboratory space, reagents and teaching staff which restricts students’ ability to expand or repeat experiments.
One solution that enables students to practice their skills is to create a hybrid practical environment. We have developed an authentic Virtual Lab, which incorporates random variability and errors, that allows students to repeat and expand on experiments done in physical laboratories. It encompasses a suite of common experiments in molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology and microbiology.
The hybrid laboratory has been deployed in several second- and third-level biological science courses to specifically support learning in each course. It has been used to allow students to familiarise themselves with a technique by repeating it and then designing their own experiment to be conducted in the physical laboratory. The Virtual Lab allows students to learn new techniques not available in the physical laboratory due to high costs, and to expand on the original experimental plans ( e.g. by increasing the assay duration, sample number and/or concentration ranges). The Virtual Lab can also be used to generate results when students are absent from practicals.
The implementation of the hybrid environment has resulted in a 7% increase in the average mark for practical-related questions on exams, improved student confidence in the wet lab, and reduced anxiety when wet lab experiments fail or when students have been unable to attend. In addition, students have been able to virtually learn techniques that previously were demonstrated only.
Therefore, the hybrid laboratory environment supports and expands student learning and is highly adaptable while reducing the strain on scarce resources.