Hypothesis testing as a core component of a virtual experiment

We designed an interactive virtual experiment, requiring students to formulate hypotheses of expected outcomes of experiments, and then allowing them to test and review their hypotheses and receive immediate feedback. We report a trial of this approach, conducted as a paper-based exercise, to determine if the planned structure of the multimedia resource is an effective teaching tool, and provide some preliminary results from using the resultant multimedia module in a classroom. Our results are very promising as students appeared more engaged by the virtual experiments than previous teaching approaches. While students found forming relevant hypotheses to be a challenging task, there was a noticeable change in their attitude to learning and we hope that later analysis may show good learning outcomes from this encouragement of deeper learning practices in experimental investigations and consequently will encourage such enhancements of practical class teaching more generally.