Online virtual practicum during COVID-19: the case of a student work practice program Chitralada Technology Institute

Professional experience training is very important for vocational education students, who will train and practice according to job characteristics in field of studies to be skillful and gain job experience in technical level. However, due to the COVID-19 situation, having the professional experience training onsite as usual couldn't be done. So, the redesigned of training process has been made into the online version for students by using virtual practicum system, by assigning online electrical work which is as practical as the actual onsite one to students under their residential conditions, which will analyze the 8 electrical operations in total. The research has 37 participants, which are students at professional certificate level in Electrical Power, Chitralada Vocational School, Chitralada Technology Institute. The participants have been divided into 2 groups; first group, 22 students with professional experience training by using virtual practicum comparing with the second group, 15 students with professional experience training onsite. The process consists of 5 steps; Preparation, Accepting the assignments, Reporting the performances, Following up, and Evaluation. The professional experience training using virtual practicum in the academic year B.E. 2563 has the achievement averagely at 80.82%, which studied and compared the achievement with students who had professional experience training onsite in academic year B.E. 2562; averagely at 78.93%. From the result, it is found that at the statistical significance of 0.05, the average achievement of the virtual practicum isn't different comparing to the actual training, showing that the virtual practicum is as practical as the onsite training and can be used for students to gain experience and skills instead of the onsite training in the future.