A Cyber-Physical Mixed Reality System to Facilitate Chemical Laboratory Safety Education

This research develops a novel cyber-physical mixed reality system (CPMRS) to assist chemical laboratory safety education, allowing learners to conduct inquiry-based experimental operations in an environment integrating virtual and physical space by using a free and safe way so that chemical laboratory safety problems normally occurred in real chemical laboratories that may hurt learners can be avoided. This study adopted a true-experimental research design. A total of 36 Grade 11 students from a senior high school in Taipei City were recruited. 17 students were randomly assigned to the experimental group who used the CPMRS developed by this study to conduct chemical laboratory safety education, while the remaining 19 students were randomly assigned to the control group taught by a teacher in a physical chemical laboratory. The results show that the CPMRS developed in this study could effectively support learners to develop and enhance their chemical laboratory safety knowledge and contribute an innovative learning model to chemical laboratory safety education.