TeamViewer Technology's Effectiveness as an Alternative Tool to Facilitate Online Laboratory Practices for Chemical Engineering Courses Learned during Pandemic

Abstract

As the accreditation guidelines of various accreditation bodies emphasize, acquiring psychomotor skills is a very important part of learning outcomes in a chemical engineering degree. Thus, it is crucial to ensure the effective achievement of these skills, even with limited physical delivery during this pandemic period. This challenge can be overcome by adopting virtual lab experiments and simulations, which enable the students to understand the concepts, important relationships between the variables, and the potential impact of manipulating the variables on the process operation. However, many simulation software programs cannot be purchased by students individually as the license is quite expensive. Hence, using TeamViewer software as a remote learning tool has significantly benefited students accessing license simulation software in the university from wherever they are with an internet connection, a valid ID, and a password. This paper highlighted the effectiveness of employing TeamViewer as a remote learning tool to facilitate online laboratory practices in two chemical engineering courses of CHE263 (Material and Energy Balance) and CHE249 (Separation Processes). The experimentation and data analysis showed that the proposal significantly increased students' psychomotor skills while enhancing their understanding. The learning that was attained in the face-to-face classroom format and the learning that was attained using the suggested remote laboratory were found to have similar outcomes. This study will benefit other educators who need an alternative tool to do an online laboratory that uses system software and needs remote access.