A technological acceptance of remote laboratory in chemistry education

In short, for the quantitative approach, TAM was used to evaluate the students’ technological acceptance of remote laboratory in Chemistry education via questionnaire survey. Based on the data analysis, the student respondents had given an overall mean of 3.30 on the attitude towards use (ATU), 3.14 on the perceived ease of use (PEOU), 3.11 on the behavioural intention (BI) and 2.97 on the perceived usefulness (PU). Overall, student respondents gave positive responses on the technological acceptance of remote laboratory in Chemistry education.

For the qualitative approach, the Chemistry lecturers and laboratory assistants also showed positive responses on the technological acceptance of remote laboratory in Chemistry education via interview sessions. These qualitative data are consistent with the findings obtained from survey and previous research studies (Khattar et al., 2016; Mokhtar, Mikhail & Joo, 2014; Župerl & Virtič, 2013). In addition, none of them rejected the implementation or the use of remote laboratory in Chemistry education. They accepted the use of remote laboratory in Chemistry education due to several advantages of remote laboratory. For example, remote laboratory provides flexibility in terms of time and place, cost efficiency and also risk-free environment. Some lecturers stated that remote laboratory could be applied in instrumentation Chemistry or analytical Chemistry. There was also a lecturer who mentioned that Chemistry students in UPSI should be exposed to the latest technology such as remote laboratory.

Although some disadvantages of remote laboratory had been voiced out by the respondents, overall Chemistry students, lecturers and laboratory assistants had shown positive responses towards the technological acceptance of remote laboratory in Chemistry education. Thus, remote laboratory could be introduced to Chemistry education in UPSI for some feasible experiments as the teaching and learning process is shifting towards a new direction. The suggestions from the respondents could be served as references for the future development of remote laboratory in Chemistry education.