Students’ perspectives on online physics labs: a case study from a community college

During the face to face teaching before the pandemic started, many physics instructors might have regularly used videos and online labs in the active learning approaches of teaching of lectures and labs. These were powerful tools to visualize abstract concepts in the classroom and sometimes to substitute hands on labs when physical equipment was malfunctioning or unavailable. During pandemic, most of us were heavily dependent on online/remote labs from sources such as PhET Interactive Simulation sand Pivot interactives as an alternative of hands on labs. Although the online/remote labs may not replace the hands-on lab in terms of gaining practical experiences, a study has been conducted in a community college to better understand how these labs were helpful in mastering the course content. The assessments such lab reports of the students were analyzed and a survey was also conducted for the students’ reflection on these labs. Because of small population of the students and limited time of study, the results may not be generalized but the initial analysis showed that most of the students have positive attitude towards the online labs and they are fundamental in understanding the physics concepts. The complete analysis will couple the analysis from a four-year institution.