Investigating The Effect Of Virtual Education On Academic Progress And Student Satisfaction Of Biology Teachers (A Case Study Of Plant Physiology Laboratory Course At Farhangian University)

Introduction: One of the concerns of virtual education during the Corona was the teaching of laboratory courses in universities, which made teaching and learning a challenge. The way out of this challenge and adapting to the conditions is to use new technologies in education, the common type of which, is virtual education using internet infrastructure. A review of the research background shows that few researches have been done in the field of teaching laboratory courses, both during the corona pandemic and before that. Considering the importance of virtual education in Corona and post-corona conditions, as well as the importance of holding laboratory courses, the purpose of research is to investigate the effect of virtual training of the plant physiology laboratory course on the academic progress and satisfaction of Biology students of Farhangian University.
Method: The research method is observational-cross-sectional research with a descriptive-analytical approach. The independent variable is the teaching method and its effect on the dependent variables such as the level of grades and the level of students' satisfaction by the teaching method has been investigated. The statistical population is all the teacher-students of the bachelor's degree in Biology education of Farhangian University, Shahid Beheshti Center, Tehran, who registered in plant physiology lab in the first semester of 2021-2022 and were selected by the full number method. Since the number of subjects could be counted and identified (95 people), there was no need for sampling, and in order to achieve reliable reliability and validity, the total number method was used. The educational content of the lesson was designed in a virtual way and taught in one academic semester for the statistical population. The authors have produced and implemented a content with learning indicators that is in accordance with the lesson planning of this course and according to the subject of the course and is close to the face-to-face conditions. The laboratory sessions were held in 10 sessions and the final exam was held in the 11th session.
In the content of each session are explained; Interaction between learners and instructor, introduction of experiment, theory of experiment, necessity of experiment and its application, safety and warnings of experiment, required tools and steps of experiment. and at the end of each session, is considered a task as work report. The measuring tools and methods of the variables included the researcher-made cognitive-skill test to evaluate academic progress and the researcher-made questionnaire of satisfaction. The validity of the instrument considered through content validity and its reliability through Cronbach's alpha (0.85). The end of the training, was done the final test and completion of the satisfaction questionnaire by the student teachers and the data obtained from the research were analyzed in the form of descriptive statistics (percentage frequency, averages, standard deviation) and inferential (Kolmogorov Smirnov, T-test and analysis of variance) using SPSS26 software.
Results: The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the grades of Biology student teachers and their level of satisfaction with the virtual training of the plant physiology laboratory course. In this research, 2 main hypotheses and 3 sub-hypotheses according to the objectives of the research and the studied variables were proposed. The investigated variables include learning Biology through the index of student teachers' grades and their level of satisfaction with the virtual education method through a questionnaire and with sub-hypotheses in the dimensions of satisfaction with knowledge, skills and attitudes. The results of this study showed that, in general, all the hypotheses raised in the research were confirmed. and the virtual education method has been effective in increasing students' grades and satisfaction (Considering that the reported P-value (P) is less than 0.05). The findings show that plant physiology laboratory training in a virtual way has had a significant effect on increasing the grades of students (The post-test scores show a significant increase compared to the pre-test) and their satisfaction in the three areas of learning, knowledge, skills and attitudes. The highest level of satisfaction was observed in the field of knowledge and the lowest level of satisfaction was observed in the field of skill.
Discussion and Conclusion: With the passage of time, the effectiveness of virtual education methods in higher education is getting better and better and the improvement of this model of teaching needs time. In general, their strengths should be strengthened and their weaknesses should be identified and resolved. Considering the current situation and accepting the fact that education should go towards virtualization, it is appropriate to take more measures to raise the quality level of virtual education so that interactive methods can also find their place in virtual education. It seems that with the appropriate design and explanation of a strategic plan, it is possible to deal with the challenges of virtual teaching of laboratory courses to a certain extent and provide the basis for improving the teaching and learning of student in laboratory courses in a virtual way.