Mastering complex scientific experiments: a progressive concept mapping-based extended reality learning approach

With the development and popularization of technological devices, Extended Reality (XR) not only provides students with realistic learning environments and highly interactive learning content, but also allows students to practice and learn repeatedly in a fault-tolerant and highly free environment. However, encountering a large amount of information in a virtual learning environment can cause excessive cognitive load to students. Hence, apart from effective learning strategies and tools to guide students to learn in XR, it is also necessary to provide progressive guidance according to their learning situations. Therefore, this study proposed a progressive concept mapping-based XR learning (PCM-XRL) approach to help students learn chemistry knowledge. The study involved 73 second-year students from two classes in a senior high school, who were divided into two groups; the experimental group adopted the PCM-XRL approach while the control group adopted the conventional concept mapping-based XR learning (CCM-XRL) approach. A quasi-experimental study was designed to investigate the impact of this learning method on students' learning performance and perceptions. The results indicated that the proposed approach could enhance students' learning achievement both in chemistry and concept mapping.