Administrators’ Awareness, Procurement and Management of Virtual Laboratories for Teaching Science Subjects in Secondary Schools: A Case Study

Previous studies have documented numerous benefits of using Virtual Labs (VLs) in promoting effective teaching of science subjects. The low level of teachers' awareness, accessibility, and utilization of VLs in schools is also known. To the researchers' knowledge, what is yet to be known is the extent of administrators' awareness, procurement, and management of VLs in schools which have implications on teachers' accessibility and utilization of VLs. This study adopted a descriptive survey design. A questionnaire (AAPMVLQ), with Cronbach alpha (α = .83), was administered to a sample of 662 secondary school principals and vice-principals drawn from 271 public schools in Cross River State Nigeria. Findings revealed that the level of administrators' awareness, procurement, and management of VLs in secondary schools is very low. The low level of awareness was attributed to the poor supply of modern facilities to schools in the area of study. While the low levels of procurement and management were attributed to the low level of awareness of administrators. The conclusion and implications of these findings are that the teaching of science subjects at the secondary school level is witnessing a major setback and will continue if immediate actions are not taken to redress this issue. The poor academic performance of students in science subjects could also be liberated in the future if lessons are made more experiential by providing modern teaching aids such as VLs.