# Students' Acceptance and Tracking of a New Container-Based Virtual Laboratory
## 5 Conclusions  
This work presents the design and practical application of a container-based virtual laboratory (CVL) within the context of a subject related to cybersecurity, studying how the technology could be extended to other Engineering topics and subjects. Technical requirements for the practical development of the proposed laboratory are described as a case of study. In addition to this, an analysis of the factors and indicators which influence the learning process of students involved in the practical case is presented, together with a comparative study regarding the previous academic year. Firewall technical configurations are similar for the basic infrastructure used in both academic years. However, the number of tasks has been extended in academic year 2018-2019, as well as the students' guidance through hints. The use of Docker containers for developing the CVL becomes simple and consistent, and low-cost deployments are possible with assessment support, which are beneficial characteristics for both lecturers and students. The main improvements derived from the implementation of the proposed virtual laboratory can be summarized as follows: (1) Students have independent access (with respect to other students) with a story, in this case, the student has had the role of a junior security technician for a company. This factor helps the improvement of the learning process, and the whole process can be analyzed using it; and (2) the gathered results show better performance, in general, when comparing the new laboratory introduced in this work and the previous one, in terms of students' acceptance and behavior. The influence among the evaluated factors or constructors is first analyzed in an exploratory way, in order to compare the principal advantages and drawbacks between them. Therefore, it is possible to analyze the students' satisfaction regarding both the LoT@UNED and CVL technologies. Additionally, an initial SEM model, which is based on a TAM/UTAUT model, has been hypothesized and compared with data gathered from both the LoT@UNED and CVL technologies. The grade of influence among the indicators for both can be clearly observed. The estimated effort does not influence very much the students' attitude over both technologies (H2). The social influence does not affect the intention of use the technology for both cases (H4), and the ease of access only affects the intention of use (H5) in the case of the CVL technology. An improved TAM/UTAUT model for the CVL technology has also been hypothesized and validated in a confirmatory way, by using our conclusions about the initial SEM model for the technology proposed in this work. From the statistical data calculated from experiments, it can be concluded that the use of the CVL improves the intention of use in virtual courses for the context of cybersecurity. From the analysis of our improved SEM model for the CVL technology, some of the initial hypotheses defined (H1, H3, and H5) are fulfilled with a reliable influence, as well as two additional hypotheses (H6 and H7). H2 and H4 hypotheses were discarded. The final indicators of our improved SEM are Perceived Usefulness, Ease of Access, Attitude, and Intention of Use. From these factors, several hypotheses were defined to discover: (1) how the perceived usefulness of students about the CVL technology can influence their attitude for this technology; (2) how the students' attitude may have an impact on their intention of using the CVL technology (and their usefulness in an indirect way); and (3) how the ease of access to the CVL laboratories could influence the perceived students' usefulness, their attitude, and their intention of use. As a final part of the study, the students' interactions with the learning/teaching virtual platform were analyzed, in terms of the amount of accesses, sessions, and time distribution. In particular, these indicators were examined in terms of evaluation resources, usage of forums, and viewed contents from the virtual platform.