Pre-laboratory tasks are a best practice for preparing students for learning in the laboratory. Virtual labs, which use virtual reality to place students in an emulation of a physical laboratory where they have the capacity to manipulate equipment and materials as approximations of scientific practice, are emerging as an alternative to the traditional use of multimedia. Such experiences are more deeply situated and contextualized in ways that enhance the potential for knowledge gains as well as behavioral transfer. This study tested this conjecture by comparing a commercially available virtual lab as a pre-VIAL ("VIrtually Authentic Laboratory") to traditional multimedia using a quasi-experimental, nonequivalent groups design with a group of 38 rising college freshmen. The results show that both conditions were found to have improved domain-specific knowledge. Still, pre-VIAL was more successful in supporting the transfer of knowledge in the construction of a scientific claim. The results for behavioral transfer showed no difference between the groups, but the pre-VIAL group had more help requests while the multimedia group committed more errors. These results, explained by Mayer's Pre-Training Principle, add to the growing research on VR experiences with college-age students as a best practice. In addition, assessing behavioral transfer via video analysis offers new insight into the specific nature of the transfer.