In higher education, few things cut through a debate faster than good data. And when it comes to the question of whether virtual lab simulations actually prepare students for in-person lab work (not just engage them, but genuinely ready them), the evidence is building into something institutions can no longer afford to ignore.

Over the past several years, a growing body of peer-reviewed research and institutional outcome data has examined what happens when students complete virtual simulations before stepping into a physical lab. The findings are consistent, and for faculty and academic leaders grappling with student readiness gaps, they're worth looking at closely.

Students Say It Themselves: Virtual Simulations Work as Pre-Lab Preparation

One of the most telling findings doesn't come from a controlled experiment; it comes from students directly. In a 2025 study of life science students, 90% reported an increase in self-confidence in their lab skills after using virtual lab simulations, and 75% said they believe virtual labs work best when used as pre-lab preparation.

A separate study involving 352 biology students reinforced this pattern even more sharply. In that research:

• Over 90% agreed that virtual simulations functioned as effective pre-lab tools
• 89% wanted access to virtual lab simulations before attending class lectures
• More than 85% reported feeling more confident heading into physical lab work after completing virtual simulations

Both of these studies show clear evidence that students value virtual simulations in terms of preparedness, confidence, and relevance to their educational outcomes. And, frankly, here at Labster, we hear this anecdotally from students all the time. Yes, they find virtual simulations engaging and interesting, but more importantly, they tell us how much they improve their learning results.

Confidence Is Not a Soft Metric

It's worth pausing on the confidence data, because in academic conversations, it sometimes gets overlooked or dismissed as subjective. In reality, confidence is a measurable indicator that influences student persistence and performance.

Self-efficacy, a student's belief in their ability to perform a task, is one of the strongest documented predictors of academic persistence and performance in STEM. Students who feel capable engage more actively, ask more questions, attempt more challenging problems, and are less likely to withdraw when they hit difficulty. Students who feel underprepared do the exact opposite.

When more than 85% of students report increased confidence after virtual pre-lab preparation, that's a leading indicator of participation, persistence, and outcomes, not just a feel-good data point. Real learning starts with having the confidence that it is possible.

What Happens at the Institutional Level

The individual-level data is compelling, but institutional outcome data is where the stakes become most concrete for academic leaders.

At Yavapai College, a rural community college in Northern Arizona, instructors integrated Labster virtual labs into their online microbiology course, BIO 205. The institution had been struggling with a persistent completion gap between online and in-person sections of the same course. Within a single year of the integration, online course completion jumped from 66% to 80% — a 14-percentage-point improvement that closed the gap entirely with in-person sections.

That's not a marginal efficiency gain. For a college population where completion rates directly affect transfer pathways, career trajectories, and institutional funding, a 14-point improvement is transformational.

A similar pattern emerged at the graduate level. In research examining the use of Labster in a graduate molecular biology course, the strongest gains were observed among students with the lowest baseline knowledge, exactly the population most at risk of falling behind in a physical lab setting. Virtual pre-lab preparation didn't just help the already-prepared students feel more confident; it disproportionately benefited those who needed the most support.

The Pre-Lab Use Case Is the Strongest Use Case

Something that emerges consistently across the research is that the impact of virtual simulations is very high when they're deployed specifically as pre-lab preparation.

The Dundalk Institute of Technology study found that 75% of students who used Labster identified pre-lab preparation as an optimal use case. Educators in the same study echoed this: virtual labs can function as the bridge between conceptual instruction and hands-on practice, the layer of preparation that lets in-person lab time focus on higher-order discovery rather than foundational review.

This is an important nuance for institutions thinking about how to integrate virtual simulations into their programs. The question isn't whether to use virtual labs or in-person labs. It's how to sequence them so each does what it does best.

Building Readiness at Scale

What the research collectively describes is a readiness infrastructure that is enabled by virtual labs. A structured, scalable approach ensures that students arrive at the in-person lab having already practiced the procedures, encountered the equipment, and built the foundational understanding they need to perform.

For institutions with diverse student cohorts, this kind of standardized preparation is also an equity mechanism. It doesn't eliminate all differences in prior experience, but it creates a meaningful common foundation that levels the starting point for the in-person experience.

Labster's LabReady collection was built directly from this evidence base. It’s a curated set of 36 simulations designed to function as exactly this kind of pre-lab readiness infrastructure for STEM programs.

The research reveals that preparing students for the in-person lab is essential to STEM student success. And, the institutions seeing the best results have taken steps to act. 

Explore the full Labster research library or contact us to learn how LabReady fits your program.