Aim.

The aim is to evaluate whether the use of remote laboratories as didactic material improves knowledge, skills, and attitudes and develops the level of scientific literacy of telesecundaria (distance education programs for secondary school) students.

Method.

This study applies a mixed, quasi-experimental pretest/post-test methodology. The participants are all second-grade high school students (n=21) and their corresponding science teacher (Physics). Data were collected with questionnaires and by gathering learning evidence. The data analysis implemented a t-test for independent samples of the differences in the post-test/ pre-test score between the students that used the remote laboratories and the students from the control group; the analysis also triangulated quantitative and qualitative data.

Results.

The results and main findings show that remote laboratories help students develop scientific literacy. Furthermore, the group that used the remote laboratories showed an improvement of two points on average in the post-test results compared to the pre-test, while in the case of the control group, there was no such improvement.

Conclusions.

The conclusions reached are that the ease of use and relevance of electronic laboratories in science education favor the selection of inquiry activities and experimental evidence of learning through physical interaction with natural phenomena.

Recommendations.

Although electronic laboratories do not replace a formal laboratory, the use of this technology aids in the creation of an easy-to-use school laboratory. Its integration is particularly important in school contexts with scarce resources.