Abstract
In the natural science curriculum, chemistry is a very important domain. However, when conducting chemistry experiments, safety issues need to be taken seriously, and excessive material waste may be caused during the experiment. Based on the 11-year-old student science curriculum, this paper proposed a virtual chemistry laboratory, which was designed by combining a virtual experiment application with physical teaching materials. The virtual experiment application was a virtual experiment laboratory environment created by using selected experimental equipment cards in combination with augmented reality (AR) technology. The physical teaching materials included all virtual equipment required for experiment units. Each piece of equipment had corresponding cards for learners to choose from and utilize in specific experimental operations. It was hoped that students were able to achieve the desired learning effectiveness of experimental teaching while reducing the waste of experimental materials through the virtual experimental environment. This study employed the quasi-experimental and questionnaire survey methods to evaluate both learning effectiveness and learning motivation. Eighty-one students and eight elementary school teachers were surveyed as research subjects. The experimental results revealed that significant differences in learning effectiveness existed between the experimental group and control group, indicating that the application of AR technology to teaching substantively helped enhance students’ learning effectiveness and motivation. In addition, the results of the teacher questionnaire demonstrated that the virtual chemistry laboratory proposed in this study could effectively assist with classroom teaching.
Highlights
Over the past few decades, chemistry has been regarded as a very difficult subject, as its abstract concepts are hard to teach and difficult to be learned using an intuitive perspective
The results show that virtual reality (VR) training is better than augmented reality (AR) in short-term memory, and AR training is better than VR in long-term memory
We proposed a teaching system that was designed in accordance with the experiments in the 11-year-old student Natural Science and Living Technology Curriculum, and evaluated the learning effectiveness of students using this system through the quasi-experimental and questionnaire survey methods
Summary
Over the past few decades, chemistry has been regarded as a very difficult subject, as its abstract concepts are hard to teach and difficult to be learned using an intuitive perspective. This has given rise to difficulties in learning. Teachers impart knowledge of many colorless and odorless gases only through textbooks. This is likely to result in rote memorization rather than true understanding on the part of students [6]. The experimental curriculum has been viewed as having great importance in helping students grasp difficult concepts through hands-on practice
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
