Using an Augmented Reality Learning Environment to Teach the Mechanism of an Electrophilic Aromatic Substitution

Last year, IUPAC named augmented reality (AR) as one of the top ten emerging technologies in chemistry for 2022 for chemistry research and teaching chemistry. Despite an increase in the number of studies investigating the use of AR to teach chemistry, there have only been a few studies on the use of AR to teach organic chemistry, especially the mechanism of chemical reactions. We designed an augmented reality learning environment (AR-LE) to teach the mechanism of an electrophilic aromatic substitution (EAS) by illustrating the macroscopic level of the reaction with a video of the experiment, a 2D-AR animation of the mechanism using Lewis structures (symbolic level), and a 3D-AR animation of the mechanism to illustrate the particulate level. The AR-LE was used in five different grade 12 chemistry classes in Germany in 2022. Students took a knowledge test before and after the lesson and answered survey questions regarding their cognitive load, their acceptance of the technology, and their attitude toward the use of the technology to learn chemistry. The findings reveal that students significantly increased their learning gains (Z = 5.348, p < 0.001). The calculated effect size of 0.8062 shows that the treatment had a large effect. Furthermore, their responses to the cognitive load and technology acceptance survey indicated that they did not experience high extraneous cognitive load and showed overall acceptance of the AR-LE.