University students’ perceptions of remote laboratory courses necessitated by COVID-19: differences in emergent teaching strategies at a Korean university

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe and caused formal educational sites to shift from in-person instruction to remote learning. University laboratory courses that were previously hands-on were also transformed into remote courses. This study investigates how university students perceived their experiences of remote laboratory courses across various disciplines. This study was conducted at a large public university in the Republic of Korea that offers a variety of laboratory courses. Adopting a mixed-methods approach, we collected online survey responses from 338 students and conducted in-depth interviews with 18 students. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Bonferroni post hoc tests of survey responses found that students’ perceptions of their remote laboratory courses differed significantly ( p < .05) by discipline (physics, chemistry, biology, earth sciences, etc.). Student interviews revealed that these differences in perceptions were attributable to the different emergent teaching strategies used in each course. Based on these findings, for remote laboratory courses in the post-COVID-19 era, we suggest that course instructors clearly set learning objectives, carefully design videos of experiments, offer collaborative and synchronous online sessions, provide guidance and feedback on lab report writing, and introduce supportive assessments.