Lavanya Rajendran et. al.

/ (IJCSE) International Journal on Computer Science and Engineering

Vol. 02, No. 06, 2010, 2173-2175

A study on the effectiveness of virtual lab in E-

learning
Lavanya Rajendran, Ramachandran Veilumuthu, Divya. J1

Abstract— The research aims to identify the effectiveness of experimenting things. 

virtual lab in E-learning suite. The study aims to analyze the
increase in learning skills and the understanding level of
concepts by implementing virtual lab among school students in
Traditionally in India mostly Auditory learning style are
Chennai. The study also focuses on identifying whether the used, that is students just learn what their teacher has told or
virtual lab helps the students to increase the self-paced what they heard. In this style of the students knowledge
learning. The research methods adopted are Survey and mostly depends on the oratorical skills and knowledge level
Expert Interview. The findings of the study shows that of the teacher. In depth knowledge on the subject will be
majority of the students are aware of the virtual labs and are lacking among the students due to distraction and many
highly appreciated by them. Students prefer computer assisted other issues.
tools than the textbooks for learning purpose. The study
suggests that the virtual labs have to be adopted in schools for
making their students think out of the box. Visual learning is used in forms of powerpoint
presentions, charts or blackboard illustrations. This type of
Index Terms— e-Learning, Virtual Labs, Simulations.
teaching made the students to know how the system will
look like. The problem here is, even though they were able
to visualise the system, the students were ignorant about
I. INTRODUCTION
how the actual system works. They are restricted with the
words of their teacher and the words from the textbook.
Education is defined as the conscious attempt to
promote learning in others. Traditionally, analysis of this
In the next stage education was through Visuals
attempt has centered around direct teaching on the part of
combined with Auditory. In this context, visuals means not
teachers. In what constitutes a paradigm shift, however,
only pictures but also 3D and 2D videos. Multimedia
people now note that learning can be promoted in ways that
representation of the classroom lessons was available to
go beyond direct instruction by a teacher-education now
students. This mode of teaching through Computers is
centers around creating a viable, productive learning
known as Computer Based Training abbreviated as CBT.
environment, regardless of how teacher-centric that
Through CBT a student will come to know how a system
environment might be. When the term education is
will look alike and how it works. CBT raised the level of
combined with entertainment, the term edutainment is
education but again it also had a negative side to it. Now a
coined. Edutainment also called "e-learning" are new
student can know how a system works but the student was
methods and practices that enabled learning in faster, more
not able to experiment with the system. Due of this reason,
efficient and more entertaining ways. The idea is usually to
students lacked in cognitive knowledge.
combine games with learning, using software or interactive
courses.
The fourth learning style is the kinesthetic learning.
This means learning by doing. This learning style helps the
Learning induces a persistent, measurable, and
students to develop logical reasoning. Some simple
specified behavioral change in the learner to formulate a
experiments can be done as laboratory exercises but when
new mental construct or revise a prior mental construct. The
there are few complex experiments which cannot be done in
learning styles can be basically classified into four methods:
labs. In such conditions virtual labs comes to the rescue.
 Auditory learning – learning by hearing 
 Visual learning – learning by seeing 
 Reading / writing – learning by processing contents.  Virtual Labs have considerable educational potential
 Kinesthetic learning or practical – learning by because they provide an opportunity to 'learn by doing'.
They also provide access to systems which are otherwise
                                                            
1
 
Lavanya Rajendran is with the Department of Media Sciences, Anna University, Chennai, India. ( Ph: +91-98400-09744, [email protected] ).
Ramachandran Veilumuthu is with the Department of Information Science and Technology, Anna University, Chennai, India ([email protected]).
Divya .J, was a student of Masters Degree in Electronic Media, Department of Media Sciences, Anna University.
 

ISSN : 0975-3397 2173

 Lavanya Rajendran et. al. / (IJCSE) International Journal on Computer Science and Engineering
Vol. 02, No. 06, 2010, 2173-2175

inaccessible for reasons such as safety, cost and size. Users There are two basic types of interviews namely
can explore a variety of what if scenarios by changing the structured and unstructured. In a structured interview,
input and observing the effect on the output. standardized questions are asked in a predetermined order,
relatively little freedom is given to interviewers. In an
Thus, the virtual labs have lots of advantages. The unstructured interview, broad questions are asked that allow
study aims to identify the effectiveness of these virtual labs interviewers freedom to determine what further questions to
in E-learning suite. The study aims to analyze the increase
in learning skills and the understanding level of concepts by III. RESEARCH ANALYSIS
implementing virtual lab among school students in Chennai.
The study also focuses on identifying whether the virtual lab The study shows that the 35 percent of the students
helps the students to increase the self-paced learning. surf internet for games and only 25 percent of them surf for
improving their knowledge. The remaining 40 percent of
ask to obtain the required information. Structured samples use internet for both education and entertainment.
interviews are easy to tabulate and analyze, but they do All the 92 percent of the students who are aware of
not achieve the depth or expanse of unstructured virtual labs are interested in doing experiments virtually.
interviews. Conversely, the unstructured type elicits more They feel they need not worry about the damaged caused
detail but takes a great deal of time to score and analyze. due to wrong results and they can work in lab as and when
wanted. There will not be any restriction in the lab timings.
In the study, unstructured interview was adopted
with an expert, Mr.Suresh Kumar, CEO, Cyber School Almost 90 percent of the students recommend
Technology Solutions, Adyar, Chennai. He has got an using computer based tutorial with virtual labs incorporated
extensive experience in multimedia production especially in with them instead of textbooks. Nearly 62 percent of them
producing CBTs with Virtual labs embedded in it. And Mr. feel they require a faculty for guidance all the time and 22
Jeyachandran, MCA, CCNA Senior System Executive and percent of them felt they don t require any guidance,
Faculty, NIIT Technologies, Chennai. whereas 16 percent of the students felt they require guidance
for certain topics.
II. RESEARCH METHODS All the samples responded that they would use the
cbts with virtual labs in it in future for the subject available.
The research methods for the study are survey and This shows the students enthusiasm in using the virtual labs.
experts interview. Survey research is one of the most They felt by using these virtual labs, they are learning
important areas of measurement in applied social research. through fun.
The broad area of survey research encompasses any According to Mr.Suresh Kumar the animations
measurement procedures that involve asking questions of (visuals) have a huge impact in the minds of the students, even
respondents. A survey can be anything from a short paper- though they might not recognize the technology behind it. He
and-pencil feedback form to an intensive one-on-one in- continued stating that virtual labs are very interactive
depth interview. component which flourishes the student mind about the
concept. He commented that the future generations would be
In the study, the samples are the students studying using computer based tutorials with virtual labs embedded in it
in eleventh standard. The questionnaire method will be used and the percentage of book reading pupil will be negligible. He
for collecting the data from the samples. The Sample size of strongly says that multimedia products will take over all
the study is fifty students of age group 16 to 17 years. The other media.
samples were taken from the XI class in a school in Chennai The expert personally felt that without virtual lab a
that have exposed the student with computer based tutorials. CBT/WBT can never achieve such amazing quality. Virtual
Out of 50 students in a class, 35 were boys and remaining Lab are developed using commercial products like
were girls, who will the samples of the study. Macromedia Flash, Alias Maya, Discreet 3Ds max, Adobe
Photoshop, Discreet Combustion. Many of the foreign
Interviews are designed to explore someone’s point companies have their own proprietary softwares and tools
of view in detail. The key thing that distinguishes the for the production of CBT/WBT.
interview from questionnaire is the researcher’s flexibility to
explore interesting things. Qualitative interviews begin with He suggested that many youngsters in multimedia
interview schedule that lists the most important topics to be should help the schools and college to prepare the virtual
covered. It is the most flexible means of obtaining labs, so that the entire curriculum are reproduced in this
information because the face-to-face situation lends itself format without any manipulation.
easily to questioning in greater depth and detail. These multimedia products not only help the

ISSN : 0975-3397 2174

 Lavanya Rajendran et. al. / (IJCSE) International Journal on Computer Science and Engineering
Vol. 02, No. 06, 2010, 2173-2175

students to improve their knowledge, but also it helps the  Multimedia Production companies instead of
teachers to explain concepts easily. He said quality is the producing only computer based tutorials can embed
talk of the day. The future would be wholly digital and virtual labs in it where ever possible. 
computer based, and text books would fade out and digital
would creep in and encroach the present day of education VI. CONCLUSION
stream. Computers and the Internet have expanded the
The expert concluded by stating that the cost spent way in which information can be delivered to the students
is worth it and this technology would survive and thrive in of today. Today's technology provides a valuable
the industry. These virtual labs will help the students at opportunity to practice new learning techniques. Teachers
remote areas. They can learn the concepts independently, should be made to use Virtual labs to facilitate learning.
thereby increasing their performance and efficiency in the Teachers must adapt current teaching methods to
area of their interest. It will be cost effective for the incorporate this new media into the classroom as it has
students. They can do the experiments even at home or proved to be effective.
schools, or ever where they want. The major problem in Computers have made a fundamental impact in
rural areas is lack of facility to provide laboratory for the most industries, providing a competitive advantage that
students can be minimized by using these virtual labs. has come to be essential to many businesses. Therefore,
Mr. Jeyachandran says, “When teaching schools and colleges in India must also use Virtual labs to
networking, it is impossible to set up the full infrastructure improve the educational standards
in a learning center. It will highly expensive to set up the
full equipments. So the only rescue to these kinds of The Virtual Labs will be more than a "living"
problems is Virtual labs. textbook. The "classroom of the future" will probably
NIIT has facilities of Virtual Lab and Simulation contain several kinds of simulators, virtual labs in addition
softwares available for teaching networking. The main to textual and visual learning tools.
advantage of students using these softwares is that students REFERENCES
can experiment with the network architecture without any [1] Chandola R.P, „The real problems of Indian Education „- Book
difficulty and without any fear of wrongly connecting the Enclave, Jaipur, India, 2003.
equipments. [2] E-Learning Case Study,
Another great advantage of using Virtual labs and “http://www.newman.ac.uk/Students_Websites/
~m.m.friel/advcs.htm”, Updated on 17 June 2004.
simulation softwares is that students can work in their home. [3] Fripp, John, „Learning Through Simulations: A Guide to the Design
And moreover in the field of networking most of the and Use of Simulations in Business and Education , McGraw-Hill,
subjects were covered theoretically till now but now 1993.
students have the advantage of working it out how the real [4] Benslimane, Djamal; Schahram Dustdar, and Amit Sheth, "Services
Mashups: The New Generation of Web Applications" (HTML). IEEE
networking setup looks like. Internet Computing, vol. 12, No. 5, 2008.
[5] D. N. Sujatha, K. Girish, K. R Venugopal, and L. M. Patnaik, "An
IV. RESEARCH FINDINGS Integrated Quality-of-Service Model for." IAENG International
The concept of Virtual Lab is known to majority of Journal of Computer Science vol. 34 no. 1, 2007.
the students and they are very much appreciated by the
students and the faculty. All the multimedia components Lavanya Rajendran received her Bachelor’s degree in
Computer Applications. She completed her M.Sc. in Electronic Media
like visuals, graphics, images, animation, sounds plays an and Informatics.
equally important role in these multimedia components.
She is currently pursuing her research in College of
Virtual lab is an interactive product that assists Engineering, Anna University, Chennai. Her areas of interest
students to perform their experiments in step by step include Cloud Computing, Computer Networks, Web Designing and
Video Production.
procedure, by giving proper instructions and extending its
limitations. Virtual lab encloses infotainment, Ramachandran Veilumuthu received his Masters degree and Ph.D.
in Electrical Engineering from College of Engineering, Anna
edutainment and enrichment. No pre-requisites are University, Chennai, India.
essential, and a very basic knowledge of accessing
computer is widely enough to use CBT with Virtual Lab. He is currently working as a Professor in the Department of
Information Science and Technology, College of Engineering, Anna
V. SUGGESTIONS University, Chennai. His research interest includes Cloud Computing,
Network Security, Soft Computing and Web Technology
The Suggestions were listed below:
 Major Companies and NGO can sponsor for the
production of CBT and WBTs with Virtual Lab as
the cost of preparing these are very high.
 The Government can help distributing the cbts with
virtual labs free of cost to rural schools. 

ISSN : 0975-3397 2175