ABSTRACT The rapid growth of digital technologies and the shift towards experiential learning have created new opportunities to support biomedical engineering (BME) education, facilitating students in visualization and complex concepts understanding. This study examines the effectiveness and acceptance of digital education tools, specifically augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) as alternative learning tools for BME students. A convenient sample of 80 BME students (50 women, 30 men, M age = 21.84 ± 0.95 years) was divided into intervention ( n = 43) and control ( n = 37) groups. Intervention participants studied AR and/or VR‐enhanced educational materials while control participants studied the traditional PDF materials and/or 2D videos. Both groups completed quizzes assessing learning effectiveness, with intervention group additionally completed pre‐ and post‐acceptance questionnaires. Results revealed a slight increase in VR acceptance scores, while AR yielded significantly higher post‐scores, reflecting greater usefulness, ease of use, enjoyment, and intention to use AR in the future. In terms of effectiveness, quiz scores revealed no significant difference in performance between both AR ( p = 1.000) and VR studies ( p = 0.294), likely due to the heavy cognitive load and distractions from the multi‐modal user interface and interactions. While AR and VR were not primary educational tools for BME students in Malaysia, AR showed promise as a technology tool for enhancing the teaching and learning pedagogy.
Lai et al. (Sun,) studied this question.