A Comparative Study of Students' Perceptions and Engagements toward Smartphone-based Inquiry Laboratory on Solution Concentration

Abstract

Currently, mobile technology plays important role in education and the instructional practice of science education has been changed by the advancement of mobile learning and apps. This article presents a combination of physical and virtual smartphone-based experimentation in guided-inquiry chemistry learning of concentration of solution. In this pilot study, 95 eleventh-grade students in northeastern region of Thailand were recruited to participate in a series of inquiry laboratory and they were divided into three groups for receiving different setting of learning environment. They were administered 21 -items perception and 20-items engagement questionnaires after interacting with the assigned learning environment. The results revealed that gender difference has a significant effect on students' perceptions, but there was no effect of gender difference on their learning engagement regarding the smartphone-based inquiry laboratory learning module. This implied that it is possible to use smartphone-based inquiry laboratory to facilitate chemistry learning of solution concentration for high school students.