Electronic Learning, Active Learning, Inquiry, Biomedicine, Science Materials, Teacher Student Relationship, Technology Uses in Education, Science Education, Student Attitudes, Distance Education, Teaching Methods, Undergraduate Students

In our biomedical educational program, students follow research courses. Traditionally, students receive research questions and predetermined, teacher-prepared lists of laboratory materials to use. Currently, we aim to increase our research courses' inquiry level towards a more open inquiry by omitting these teacher-prepared lists. Additionally, we want to enhance the flexibility of student-teacher interactions during research courses. Therefore, Virtual Labstore was developed. This is an online 3D laboratory stockroom in which students are able to browse all the laboratory materials present in our university and buy materials for their experiments within the limits of pre-determined financial budgets. Furthermore, several online communication tools were made available to facilitate remote student-teacher interaction. Although several students initially experienced internet-connection related problems and lacked overview of the virtual workspace itself, students indicated during focus group sessions that using Virtual Labstore instead of teacher-prepared lists stimulated thinking about how to perform their experiments. Additionally, they acknowledged the value of being able to look for materials and communicate with their teacher independently of physical location. In conclusion, Virtual Labstore positively affected students' perceptions on learning about experimental design and increased student-teacher interaction flexibility. However, Wi-Fi-stability should be checked, and time should be allocated for student-training before use.