Hendrik Peeters

Science education, and chemistry in particular, is characterized by the fact that chemical processes can often only be described on a macroscopic level. However, deeper explanations of chemical phenomena must be generated indirectly through the submicroscopic level, which is inaccessible to human perception. Models are used as aids for visualization and as epistemological tools, forming a fundamental pillar of knowledge acquisition. Previous studies analyzing students’ explanations have shown that using models and incorporating the submicroscopic level to explain chemical phenomena is not a trivial task, since the majority of explanations did not go beyond the macroscopic level and thus tended to be rather descriptive in nature.

Augmented Reality (AR) appears as a potential supportive approach in this context, as the technology is characterized by the augmentation of reality with virtual objects through digital media. This allows processes at the submicroscopic level to be represented already during the experimentation and observation phases. Therefore, the doctoral project aims to investigate the effects of using Augmented Reality during experimentation on learners’ explanations.

To this end, a systematic literature review on the use of models in the knowledge acquisition process will first be conducted, the results of which will inform the development of an AR environment. This environment will be initially evaluated and further developed before being applied in the main study, which is planned as a pre-post intervention study. The design of the two planned comparison groups will also be based on the literature review.