VRChemist: Virtual Reality for High School Chemistry

Abstract

As Virtual Reality becomes evermore popular, research is needed to find areas this new technology can be used for. As regular computer games have already been tested for educational purposes, some successfully, it is natural to continue this trend in Virtual Reality. As games and Virtual Reality separately provide increased visualisation, together they may greatly improve this for school subjects where this is needed. VRChemist is a Virtual Reality game designed primarily for high school students, and visualises atoms and molecules in a brand new way. VRChemist was tested on 7 teachers and 17 students from two Norwegian high schools to see if students and staff alike agreed that this added visual representation may be of great aid to supplement traditional learning methods in high school to improve the understanding and motivation in the subject. The results were positive, with no nausea or dizziness felt by any participant, no significant differences between the different ages or genders of students, and high interest in what a full version of VRChemist and any other potential software for Virtual Reality.