Development and Evaluation of a Virtual Lab Application for Enhancing High School Students’ Understanding of Chemical Reactions

The Virtual Lab application was developed to address the challenges faced by high school students in understanding complex and abstract chemical reaction concepts. This research employed the Research and Development (R&D) method, comprising stages of needs analysis, design, development, testing, and evaluation. The development process specifically applied the Scrum methodology, allowing for iterative and flexible software development through regular feedback and continuous improvements. The application was developed using Jetpack Compose for the user interface and FastAPI for backend operations, connected to a MySQL database. Key features include the ability for teachers to upload materials and questions, students to access these resources, and admin verification processes. Usability testing with 33 respondents revealed that 74.20% agreed on the application’s effectiveness in implementing its features. The Virtual Lab provides an interactive and user-friendly learning medium and offers a more efficient and economical alternative to physical laboratories. Further development is suggested to include feature enhancements, real-time chemical reaction simulations, and broader testing to obtain more comprehensive results.