TESTING THE EFFICACY OF VIRTUAL LABS IN INDIA FOR SIMULATION OF OPTICS EXPERIMENTS AT THE UNDERGRADUATE LEVEL

Laboratory experimentation isan important ingredient of every undergraduate program in science education. The use of virtual and remote laboratories (VRLs) offers several benefits to students, teachers, and instructors. It can mitigate the high costs of procurement of apparatus in traditional labs and can support distance and blended learning. The recent outbreak of Covid-19 has resulted in isolating the students from labs which have made such online laboratories imperative even in the traditional offline education system. They offer a possible alternative to conventional hands-on labs. Such online mode imparts freedom to teachers as well as students to define their experimental goals and objectives. This paper tests the efficacy of the Virtual Labs platform for conducting simulated experiments onlinein the field of Optics. The learning outcome of the students who employ the same to simulate experiments online is analyzed. The main objective is to explore the limitations posed to the users of such an online lab platform in terms of designing the experimentsand visualization of the experiment results and offer suggestions to make such VRLs more efficacious, versatile, and user-friendly.