Virtual Laboratories During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review

Abstract

The measures taken to control the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as social distancing and the closure of educational institutions, have had a major impact on the normal development of learning activities. Laboratory activities have been greatly affected due to their practical and face-to-face nature. This study carries out a systematic review of different approaches used to transform face-to-face laboratories into virtual and remote laboratories. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses have been carried out on a sample obtained from the Scopus database (n = 13), identifying the type of documents, relationship between authors and documents, collaboration index, as well as the country where the experience was carried out. The areas of knowledge and the tools used in them have also been described. The results show that all articles were published in 2021, most of which were multi-authored articles with a collaboration rate of 4.8. The country in which most experiences were developed was the USA, the knowledge area with the most studies was biology and the most used tool, in combination with others, was videoconferencing. Only one of the experiences took advantage of immersive technology or virtual reality to set up a virtual laboratory.