Learning chemical reaction via augmented reality

Abstract

The possibility of using Augmented Reality (AR) program as supplementary material in learning chemistry is evaluated in this paper. Chemistry is regarded as difficult to learn due to abstract nature of the subject. The content learning of the subject comprises multiple levels of representation, which challenge the conceptual understanding and problem solving of a student. This study is trying to identify the difficulty of learning chemistry particularly in acids and bases topic in term of conceptual understanding and algorithmic problem solving. Students are known to consistently make mistake writing the symbol of chemical formulas and also confused between the use of subscript and coefficient of a chemical formula. These eventually lead to wrong stoichiometry in balancing the chemical equation. The mistakes snowball into bigger problems when students are not able to understand the chemical equation in term of the algorithm and also conceptual. In order to the address the issues, students’ understanding regarding the chemical reaction of acids and bases should be investigated to elucidate student alternative conception if any in order to suggest suitable features for learning acids and bases chemical reaction using the AR program. As the issue is considered prevalent, the need of effective and promising solution is critical, thus AR should be evaluated as a supplementary teaching aid. AR helps students in visualizing the microscopic part of the reaction hence should promote correct understanding of the chemical reaction. The technology is considered recent and the use in chemistry field has been reported. However in chemical reaction learning, data supporting the effectiveness of the AR program is still insufficient. The effectiveness of the program towards students’ algorithmic problems solving and conceptual understanding in the acids and bases topic can be investigated. The results from the study should suggest the significance of the AR program in learning chemical reaction and equation in chemistry.