Although the inclusion of learning outcomes for individual classes is ubiquitous, little attention seems to have been paid in the literature to the overall purpose of experimental practical work within undergraduate physiology courses. The enforced move to online practical classes in the academic year 2020-1, as a result of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, led us to wonder what, if anything, students at the University of Cambridge felt they were missing out on. Towards the end of that year, we asked our year 1 medical, veterinary and natural science students what they felt in-person practical classes would have offered them, and to what extent this had been replicated through the online format. The detailed questionnaire sent to the students included a list of 17 possible benefits of in-person practical classes; the students were asked to rate the importance of each on a Likert scale, and suggest any further benefits that we might have overlooked. We subsequently sent a very similar questionnaire to the same cohort of students when they had reached their third years. This second questionnaire was intended to assess whether opinions had changed, after these students had actually experienced a year of in-person practical teaching.

In year 1 we received 145 responses and in year 3, 43 responses, from around 600 students. Despite the low response-rate, the results of both questionnaires showed some striking consistencies. Of the possible benefits of practical classes, “Working in an ‘active’ way” achieved the highest importance rating in year 1, followed by “Becoming familiar with basic laboratory equipment and techniques”, “Developing problem-solving skills” and “Discussing scientific questions with the academic staff”.  The bottom four were “Preparing you for the exam”, “Having the opportunity to test your own ideas, experimentally”, “Gaining experience in performing calculations” and lowest of all, “Thinking about the ethical aspects of scientific research”. Although the order was different, the four top-rated and four bottom-rated items were the same in year 3, except that “Gaining experience in performing calculations” was replaced in the bottom four by “Developing a professional identity”. Further benefits that emerged from open-ended student comments included the importance of being able to make mistakes without serious consequences, and the opportunity to experience what research science might be like as a career.

Year 3 students retrospectively recognized the convenience of the online format, and noted that such classes provided a more standardized experience, often coming with supporting material that was more accessible for revision purposes. The online format was seen to lend itself to certain types of classes, such as coding, bioinformatics and histology. However, students overall did not feel that online classes were good replacements for in-person practicals, which were felt to be more engaging and allowed for social interactions that were sorely missed during the pandemic. It was clear from the results of our study that students particularly value the opportunities to develop hands-on practical skills and ask questions of academic demonstrators, in the context of a live experimental class.