1 Introduction

Peer learning is a type of collaborative learning that involves students working in small groups to discuss concepts or find solutions to problems (Innovation CfT, 2020). Peer learning has been demonstrated to be a promising method to improve students’ academic performance in STEM courses (Topping, 2005). For example, Beer and Jones (2008) and Pålsson et al. (2017) found that peer learning improves nursing students’ self-efficacy to a greater degree compared to conventional supervised learning. More generally, Beer and Jones (2008) list major benefits of being part of an effective peer learning network such as additional assistance with challenges, especially from peers; more perspectives on solving problems; better access to expertise; more meaningful participation in the group work; and feeling a stronger sense of identity within the study discipline and overall university life. While most of the peer learning activities have been conducted in the face-to-face format, a major shift to distance learning has been happening during the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, even without considering COVID-19, recent technological advancement has dramatically changed the landscape of higher education, particularly with respect to online learning. An increasing number of universities offer online courses, enrollments in online courses are steadily on the rise, and 2012 was regarded as the “Year of the MOOC” (massive open online course) (Pappano, 2012). As a result, the rapid development of online teaching formats has raised many research interests in the area of digital instructional design (Hone and El Said, 2016; Guo et al., 2014; Breslow et al., 2013; Christensen et al., 2013). One challenge of online learning is helping the online student to establish a social presence (Madhavan and Lindsay, 2014). Alkhaldi et al. (2016) pointed out that research was lacking regarding how to effectively incorporate meaningful collaboration between students in online environments, which was one way to improve social presence. Alkhaldi et al. (2016) suggested educators should take advantage of technological advances to implement innovative online labs, and student collaboration in online labs was deemed to be one of the areas that is interesting to investigate further.

2 Literature Review

Researchers have pointed out that online learning in technology-enhanced environments could effectively support STEM learning.Arguedas-Matarrita et al. (2017) evaluated the potential use of the online lab tool in a training workshop for schoolteachers in Costa Rica. The schoolteachers’ feedbacks were positive, and they would like to use this tool in future teaching activities. Grodotzki et al. (2018) designed a remotely-operated testing cell. In general, the participants showed good interest in this online format. Faulconer et al. (2018) ran a comparison study between online and in-person chemistry labs for a sample size of 823. The study showed students, who took in-person chemistry lab, tended to get fewer “A”s and more “D”s than their online counterparts. Tejado et al. (2019) presented a VL (Virtual Laboratory) as an interactive tool to support learning in systems theory-related courses at the University of Extremadura from 2015 to 2016. The use of VL was helpful for students to understand the basic concepts of modeling linear dynamical systems. Diaz et al. (2013) presented the design and development of the MOOC for learning industrial electronic circuits. The pilot course had 2000 enrollments.

Generally speaking, online labs provide a platform for students to learn synchronously and asynchronously with either remotely accessible or fully virtual lab equipment, independently from typical constraints that can be found with classical, in-person lab courses, such as time, space, and resource constraints. Online labs could, hence, help the students learn independently outside scheduled lab times. Over the last decade, more literature review papers summarized the current state-of-the-art in terms of online lab instruction in engineering and science education(Potkonjak et al., 2016; Brinson, 2015; Hernández-de Menéndez et al., 2019; Nikolic et al., 2021). Almost all studies comment on the highly diverse research results that stem from diverse lab technologies, the variety of lab application strategies in the curricula, and, nonetheless, different instructional goals connected to each lab. Another important observation shared by the studies was the common lack of peer-to-peer social interaction in many online lab applications. Studies showed peer learning could help to establish a social presence (Aragon, 2003; Lowenthal and Dunlap, 2020). However, as the lower social presence is a challenge for online learning (Bali and Liu, 2018; Kaufmann and Vallade, 2020) in general, this is also true for online lab activities. So far, only a few studies investigated the benefits of integrating peer learning in an online lab environment and compared the learning outcomes with those of physical environments.

This study hopes to fill these gaps in the literature by using mixed methods to study a novel implementation of peer learning in the online electronic circuit lab. In assessing our lab implementation, we sought to answer the following research questions about students’ peer learning experiences in online labs as compared to their peer learning experiences in the initial physical labs:

1.

How did peer learning in an online lab affect students’ perception of both their and their partner’s circuits-related skill development?

2.

How did peer learning in an online lab affect how students distributed lab tasks?

3.

How did having access to an always-available online lab affect students’ engagement outside class time?

This study allowed us to understand how physical learning environments can be transformed into online peer-learning environments. This paper focuses on the quantitative analysis of the online lab study; a separate publication was on preliminary insights to meet the tight deadline of an early COVID-19 special issue, and this paper builds upon that work by answering new research questions. (Li et al., 2020).

3 Methods and Context

3.3 Lab score

To supplement student perceptions of skill development, we also compared student lab report scores in a lab that was structured similarly in both the physical and online labs. The lab instructions, as shown in Table 2, were given to the students, and the student lab reports were compared. The similarity between the physical and online labs was the objectives are related to the Wheatstone bridge. The differences between those two labs are the lab objectives: the physical lab aims to measure the unknown resistance using an assembled Wheatstone bridge, while the online lab aims to design and build a Wheatstone bridge from scratch.

3.4 Lab usage

The online lab presented students with a learning curve, especially on the user interface. Also, only one student from each lab group could access the interface during lab hours. We posited that students’ ability to revisit the software outside of designated class time would be helpful for some students. Accordingly, we analyzed the usage data for those who logged into the class online lab during each hour of the week. Figure 2b shows an example of the lab usage data, which is presented in terms of the number of students using LabsLand^®  in the hourly slots.

4 Results

5 Discussion

The result showed that the synchronous online lab setup was successful in supporting student learning nearly as well as a physical lab environment while providing the benefit of always-accessible lab activities that many students used. (Figure 3). Our study provides some insights into the potential benefits of peer learning in an online environment. Based on what we found in this study, we confirm that the students tend to divide their labor based on their own skill sets in the online lab environment. Compared with the physical lab, more students were willing to divide the tasks based on individual strengths, as the proportion increased from 24 % to 52 % (Figure 3). Based on that, the student could only partially acquire some lab skill sets. Table 3 showed students perceived that both the skills of circuit measurement and calculation had decreased noticeably for one of the group members. Those results suggest that online lab activities may hamper the development of some necessary lab skills in favor of those on which each student chose to focus.

On the other hand, having an always-available online lab could mitigate the negative impact on individual skill development and allow the students to have more independent learning experiences. The online environment provides the out-of-school learning opportunity as a complementary and reinforcement agent, which broadens the learning environment for the student and provides novelty in education Kaya and Dönmez (2009); May et al. (2020); Loro et al. (2018). Marques et al. (2014) stated that the VISIR lab gives extra accessibility and flexibility to the students. In our study, according to the lab usage data, the students took advantage of the always-accessible lab outside the classroom (Table 5). However, there is no solid evidence to prove they could potentially fill the skill gaps by doing so. Accordingly, more structured out-of-class activities may be necessary to engender the outcome of all students achieving an acceptable level of proficiency in all essential lab skills.

6 Conclusion

This study demonstrated that online labs have numerous benefits for the pandemic and post-pandemic classroom learning. On the learners’ side, Labsland^®  was a cost-effective tool that allowed the students to sharpen their lab skills or enhance their learning of engineering principles by revisiting the lab content in their own time. The online lab structure was designed to solve engineering problems collaboratively while improving individual skill sets. Through peer learning, some students saw improvement in their peers in terms of the circuit assembly.

Online collaboration encouraged more role-playing and task-specific teamwork, which has been shown as a hallmark of successful workplace teams. In the existing lab setting, one student worked on circuit assembly while others provided real-time feedback over Zoom. Therefore, to optimize the team efficiency, the team leader would assign one member with more experience in circuit assembly to work on Task 3 (Appendix A). That could also potentially place more burdens on the team leader. A possible improvement is to facilitate team formation on the instructor’s side before task assignment. The instructor could pick the students with complementary skillsets for the teams and potentially improve their personal skill development (Table 3). On the other hand, Labsland offered an immersive experience that gave students a feeling of being present in a hands-on physical lab. The instructors could design an online lab using Labsland with learning objectives from the physical labs.

The assessment data, including survey, lab usage, and lab score, were used to evaluate the peer-learning in the online environment. In a nutshell, this study indicated that combining the online learning tools of Zoom meetings and VISIR lab software is an effective way to support student learning in online environments. Individual lab skills could be further improved by more structured out-of-class self-learning activities.

Acknowledgment

The Institutional Review Board of the University of Georgia approved this research under protocol ID PROJECT00001996. The author team is not affiliated with LabsLand^®  beyond the use and study of its virtual lab services.