From Manipulation to Meaning-Making: Dialogic Inquiry in Virtual-Lab-Supported Physics Classrooms in Brazil

Abstract

Although virtual laboratories (VLs) have been widely promoted as tools for expanding inquiry-based science learning, their potential for supporting dialogic inquiry in limited resource areas remains underexplored. This study investigates how the affordances of VLs are enacted through dialogic inquiry in Brazilian upper-secondary physics classrooms. Drawing on a practitioner-led design-based research project with local teachers, the paper reports an analysis of VL-supported physics lessons in small-town municipal public schools in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Guided by the Activity-Centred Analysis and Design (ACAD) framework, the analysis integrates three dimensions of classroom activity: epistemic task phases, dialogic interaction, and digital tool use. Epistemic Network Analysis and Lag Sequential Analysis were used to examine structural relationships and temporal pathways, complemented by evidence from teacher reflections and student interviews. The findings show that VL use shifted classroom discourse towards experimentation-centred and evidence-oriented inquiry. Manipulation-based actions were primarily associated with procedural coordination, whereas visualisation-focused affordances were more closely linked to observation, questioning, reasoning, and collaborative explanation. Observation-based exploratory talk emerged as a key mediating practice between simulation interaction and conceptual dialogue. The study contributes to understanding how technological affordances, inquiry pedagogy, and classroom dialogue interact in technology-mediated science learning, and how educators can capitalise on this to support knowledge construction.