Identifying key features of digital resources used during online science practicals

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 18; no. 10; p. e0283054
• Main Authors: Janštová, Vanda, Novotný, Petr, Chlebounová, Irena, Guitart, Fina, Forne, Ester, Tortosa, Montserrat
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: San Francisco, CA USA Public Library of Science 24.10.2023; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Biology and Life Sciences; Computer and Information Sciences; Curricula; Education; Educational aspects; Epidemics; Equipment and supplies; Medicine and Health Sciences; Methods; Online education; People and Places; Science Policy; Sciences education; Simulation methods; Social Sciences; Spain; Teachers; Teaching; Technology application; Spain
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0283054

As in our everyday lives, we use digital elements as part of formal and informal education. To serve their educational purpose well, systematic research is desirable to identify and measure their characteristics. This study focuses on science practicals, which are complex and vary in organizational settings and specific arrangements, including usage of digital elements. We describe the digital resources on which the online instruction of science practicals during the COVID-19 forced lockdowns was built, and their key characteristics were identified. Data were collected from science teachers in Slovakia, Czechia, Slovenia, France, and Spain. The teachers shared the web resources they used and that they would recommend, together with a description of the resources. We recorded 89 inputs representing 50 unique resources. Teachers preferred free resources, mostly for knowledge revision, and newly discovered 36% of them due to forced distant teaching. The best evaluated resources were those supporting interaction (especially among peers), focused on teaching subjects and/or ICT, ready to use, and with a clear structure. The resource most frequently mentioned and used in more than half of the countries was PhET (Interactive Simulations for Science and Math) which provides free simulations of scientific principles. Other characteristics mentioned in the literature (e.g., supporting creativity and independent solving, connecting different levels of organization, authenticity, flexibility) were not that important for the overall rating.