Evaluating LabScope: An Immersive VR Chemistry Laboratory for Rwandan Secondary Schools
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.57125/ELIJ.2026.03.25.05Keywords:
chemistry education, competency-based curriculum, instructional technology, immersive learning, System Usability Scale, usability testing, virtual reality.Abstract
The lack of equipped science laboratories in schools within Rwanda's secondary education has been a persistent problem. With only a quarter of schools (25.5%) having viable facilities, chemistry education suffers, and students have limited ability to acquire the practical skills required by the national Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC). To address this shortage of infrastructure, LabScope, a virtual-reality (VR) chemistry laboratory built in Unity 2023.2 and delivered on Meta Quest 2 headsets, offers seven experiments related to the curriculum. This research assessed LabScope using the Educational Design Research (EDR) framework with two stages of preliminary study (n = 75) and a full-fledged usability study (n = 40; 32 students, 8 teachers). Three research questions that were answered by using System Usability Scale (SUS) instruments, observational, and structured teacher interviews, explored the three questions: usability as ease of use and learnability, and satisfaction; conceptual understanding enhancement, engagement, and development of experimental skills; and stakeholder perceptions of the benefit, limitation, and potential improvement of the platform. The results obtained a mean SUS of 84 out of 100, which places LabScope in the range of usability labeled excellent. Eighty-five percent of the respondents indicated that they understood chemical reactions better, 78 percent indicated that they were continually engaged during sessions, and 70 percent found it easy to navigate. Teachers stated LabScope’s high conformity to the CBC and equitable access to laboratory experiments were the main strengths of the platform. One of the areas that was identified for LabScope improvement was its technical reliability. These findings indicate that immersive VR can serve as a useful, affordable alternative to physical laboratory facilities in low-resource secondary school settings.
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