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This paper investigates whether student-directed inquiry within a virtual setting is better than student-directed inquiry within a physical setting in terms of acquisition of knowledge regarding DNA, chromosomes, genotypes, phenotypes, punnett squares and alleles. In order to explore the research questions, a group of middle school students within the same science class at an inner-city middle school were recruited as participants, and divided into two groups, student-directed virtual inquiry (SDVI) and student-directed physical inquiry (SDPI) groups. The students in SDVI group learned the science topics, DNA, chromosomes, genotypes, phenotypes, punnett squares and alleles, within a virtual learning environment on genetics for middle school students called Rigglefish. The students in SDPI group received the instructions on the same topics within a physical setting, their regular classrooms by a live teacher. Students in both groups (SDPI and SDVI) were asked to complete a pre-test and a post-test that included the same multiple-choice questions. The comparison of the groups through an independent group t-test on the pre-test administered before the experiment showed that the two groups were at the same level in terms of knowledge of the learning objectives for this experiment. Post-test administered to assess the students' knowledge of the learning objectives after they went through the experiment in the two different settings (virtual learning environment vs. physical setting). A 2-tailed independent group T-test was run in order to compare the two groups on the dependent variable, their scores on the post-test. The statistical test results showed that the difference between the groups on the post-test scores was not statistically significant, which indicated that the setting, virtual versus physical, did not make any impact on how much students acquired the learning objectives, DNA, chromosomes, genotypes, phenotypes, punnett squares and alleles. |
