A Study of the Needs and Factors Affecting the Mobile Application of the Virtual Science Lab Usage to Enhance Junior High School Students’ Science Process Skills.

Abstract

The purposes of this research were 1) to study the use of information technology of junior high school students, and 2) to study the needs of a virtual science lab mobile application used to enhance scientific process skills, and 3) to study the factors affecting the virtual science laboratory mobile application used to enhance scientific process skills of junior high school students. The sample group was junior high school students, 2nd semester, academic year 2021, all regions across Thailand, with a total of 438 students. The sample were randomly selected using cluster sampling. The research instruments was a questionnaire. There are checklist, ranking, and rating scale questions. The statistics used to analyze the data are frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and the Modified Priority Need Index (PNI Modified) technique was used to prioritize needs. The research revealed the following findings: 1) most junior high school students use an android mobile phone to access information the most, 2) the need for the use of virtual science lab mobile applications to enhance the science process skills of junior high school students. The top three of need are: help predict the answer in advance is the top, followed by help define variables, and help to draw conclusions from the experiments respectively, and 3) the factors affecting the virtual science laboratory mobile application used to enhance scientific process skills of junior high school students, as a whole, was at the most level. When analyzing each aspect, the design is beautiful and attractive was the factor with the highest average, followed by able to learn and practice scientific process skills on their own. and able to do science experiments on their own respectively.