# A Virtual Experiment for Learning the Principle of Daniell Cell Based on Augmented Reality
## 4 Conclusions  
The virtual experiment in this study was developed using AR and VR technologies and inquiry-based learning for students to obtain chemical knowledge and concepts during the explorative process, and it is helpful for enhancing their scientific thinking and learning effectiveness. The earlier research [21; 22; 23; 24] pointed out that students consider chemistry a challenging subject because it is difficult to imagine the abstract concepts without seeing the atoms, molecules, and ions in the invisible 3D world, and therefore it is hard to understand their dynamic motions, interactions, and kinetics. The virtual experiment allows students to observe the change of molecular structures and movement of electrons and ions during the redox reaction, which is helpful for understanding the abstract concepts and principles in the redox reaction, especially for the low-achievement students.  
The reason that students may think the microscopic concepts are difficult is mainly due to the lack of experimental manipulation and visual assistance for providing the submicroscopic views of chemical reactions. The virtual experiment developed in this study allows students to select the required equipment and set up the experimental environment via AR and VR operation. In addition, they can also obtain the important concepts and knowledge through the explorative operation under the guidance of learning scaffolds. Following the theoretical framework of [PERSON]'s triangle, different levels of knowledge can be linked together to provide more complete concepts for better cognition. The questionnaire results also revealed that most students considered the inquiry-based learning in the virtual experiment very interesting, and it could help them understand the abstract concepts of chemical reactions. An empirical research was performed to investigate the learning effectiveness of the virtual experiment, and the results show that:  
1. The virtual experiment was more effective for the low-achievement students. Both groups made a significant progress on learning effectiveness, indicating the real and virtual experiments were both effective in improving learning achievement. For high-achievement students, there was no significant difference between the two groups because most of them could understand the abstract concepts of the redox reaction. The low-achievement students had difficulty imagining the submicroscopic reactions, and thus it was required to provide visual aids to help them understand the abstract concepts. Hence, the virtual experiment can achieve better learning results by showing the submicroscopic changes in the redox reaction in real time. The results confirm that augmented reality visualizes the abstract concepts and enhances the thinking ability in spatial cognition for the low-achievement students so as to achieve better learning effectiveness.
2. Most students were satisfied with the user interface, learning contents, learning motivation, system reality, and practicality of the virtual experiment. The questionnaire results also revealed that most students considered the inquiry-based learning in the virtual experiment very interesting, and it can help them understand the abstract concepts of chemical reactions. According to the questionnaire results, the experimental group students were mainly satisfied with the operation of virtual experiment, with an overall average score equal to 3.98. Among the five categories of questions, the user interface and practicality of the virtual experiment had higher degrees of satisfaction (average score > 4), and the remaining three categories also had average scores higher than 3.85, showing that students were also satisfied with the learning contents, system reality, and learning motivation of the virtual experiment.