Table 2 Summary of tools/methods, types of interactions and the major findings of interactions in face-to-face science undergraduate laboratories

Practical Tests Assessment Inventory (PTAI) adopted from Tamir, Nussinovitz, and Friedler (1982)

Comparative, cooperative, and individualised S-S interactions

Competitive interactions were proved to be more potent than cooperative and individualised approaches.

(Okebukola, 1984)

Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI)

S-I interactions

Teacher behaviours are more strongly related to student learning outcomes than curriculum content.

(Wubbels, 1993)

Bloome’s multiple levels of interactions

Verbal and non-verbal

This naturalistic study shows that instructor-student interactions illustrate different features in different stages of the laboratory.

(Roychoudhury & Roth, 1996)

The self-developed method through constant comparison

Verbal

Students interact less in inquiry laboratories than non-inquiry approaches.

(Krystyniak & Heikkinen, 2007)

Ethnographic and mixed-method comparison of verbal discourse

Verbal and non-verbal

A comparison between the three groups indicated that to effectively develop conceptual understanding, friendly and relatively critical group atmosphere was required.

(Oliveira & Sadler, 2008)

Interviews, observations, and video documentation

Verbal and non-verbal

The instructor-student interaction was helpful in guiding students’ activities.

(Högström et al., 2010)

Sociocultural discourse analysis

Verbal and non-verbal

Students favoured proposing ideas more than asking questions in a higher level of inquiry laboratories

(Xu & Talanquer, 2013)

Tuckman’s stage model

Verbal and non-verbal

Instructors can take some methods to realise the students’ behaviour and foster their peer interactions.

(Gresser, 2006)

The constant comparison method

S-I verbal

The S-I verbal interactions were influenced by the laboratory content

(Flaherty et al., 2017)

Eighteen-category items of teacher/student interactions selected and modified after Ogunniyi and Ramorogo (1994)

S-I Verbal and non-verbal

Human-machine interaction in computer-based instruction learning environments: learners need to reallocate cognitive gains and effort and examine possible sources of error.

(Kiboss, 1997)

A modified version of the Fennema-Sherman Mathematics Attitude Scale (FSMAS) and a questionnaire

Student Attitude

TAs influence the students’ attitudes to the biology laboratories to a great extent.

(Rybczynski & Schussler, 2013)

Student and teaching assistant questionnaires

S-I Interactions

To keep the same TA (over different sessions) gave higher learning outcomes for students than with expert TA model.

(Good et al., 2015)

A pre- and post-lab survey

S-S, S-I, S-E and I-I Interactions

Students with different academic values had different opinions of interactions

(Wei et al., 2018)