Usability Testing and the Development of an Augmented Reality Application for Laboratory Learning

In general chemistry laboratories, students learn practical laboratory skills through hands-on activities and are exposed to new scientific instruments. However, these instruments are often viewed as black boxes for various reasons, where students do not know how to use them or what the instruments are capable of. This tendency is likely to induce some measure of fear in the students' attitude toward learning about instruments, even though instrumentation is a significant part of laboratory education. Augmented reality in educational laboratory (ARiEL) is an application utilizing AR technology designed to connect students to information on scientific instruments. ARiEL can be downloaded and used on phones or tablets while students are working on experiments, providing them with direct and immediate forms of information about laboratory instruments. Currently, the pH meter and conductivity meter are two instruments ARiEL can recognize as they are small, benchtop devices often used in general chemistry laboratory courses. An initial usability study with a focus group of first-term general chemistry students indicated that the application is not only easy to use but also preferred over a common search engine when looking for information on specific instruments. The application was used in a second-term general chemistry laboratory course and tested for usability evaluation and to measure students' attitude toward chemistry instrumentation. The results suggest that the availability of ARiEL helps to reduce anxiety associated with using instruments and to improve intellectual accessibility.