Increasing Student Engagement With Practical Classes Through Online Pre-Lab Quizzes

Laboratory practicals classes are an essential component of all science degrees, but are a pinch point because of rising student numbers, rising student expectations and falling student exposure to laboratory work prior to entering higher education. Augmentation of physical laboratory work with online interventions is not new, but as virtual laboratories become increasingly sophisticated, cutting-edge approaches have become less available to many institutions as they are unable to meet the investment or specialist skills needed to build or maintain these complex tools. This case study examines the possibilities for increasing student engagement with practical work using the simplest tools available in any standard virtual learning environment and available to all. Based on results obtained from a large student cohort, the results indicate that this low-cost, low-tech approach can achieve high levels of student satisfaction.