Helping students build confidence and competence in the lab with new technologies

Lab skills are a vital component of any chemistry course, and yet many new students have a real fear of the labs, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds.

Fifty per cent of Queen Mary students are the first in their family to go to university. They have very little experience of what it will be like, and this quite often means they are anxious about how they’ll manage in this new environment.

This uncertainty can be a significant obstacle for students starting a course here in the School of Physical and Chemical Sciences.

To help bridge the confidence gap, we’ve enlisted the help of the augmented reality headset, HoloLens, to empower students and grow their skills in practical chemistry. This innovative teaching method helps level the playing field for students with minimal experience of learning in a lab setting.

The HoloLens allows the wearer to interact with the real world around them as well as with a variety of virtual pictures, videos and sounds. It also enables remote users to see and hear what the wearer is experiencing and interact with them.

Innovation sparked by adversity

We discovered the potential of this mixed-reality approach during the COVID-19 lockdown in October 2020. We needed to think differently about how to deliver teaching to students who were unable to come onto campus, and who might be dealing with difficult circumstances at home. We knew how tough it would be to keep students engaged and confident in their skills at such a challenging time. Using a HoloLens we developed a revolutionary, inclusive approach to helping students develop practical chemistry skills using augmented reality.

With students unable to attend labs in person, the HoloLens allowed them to follow along with experiments remotely, while contributing to the class using Microsoft Teams and Mentimeter.

We were able to teach a full class in this way during the UK lockdown period, but also found it helpful for teaching hybrid classes, with a small group joining virtually, while others worked alongside in the lab.

One student who couldn’t return to the UK from China was able to continue her studies while also working at a biotech firm. Another student with caring responsibilities could minimise the risk of bringing COVID-19 into their home by taking part in the virtual labs.

There were even students who took their practical exams via this technology.

Opening up access for all students

Since the pandemic, we've carried on using the HoloLens to reduce inequalities in the classroom. We decided to create a set of augmented reality guides to help students learn practical techniques at their own pace.

This helps to bring students up to a universal base level of experience, regardless of their previous access to practical lab work. It has eased the transition to a university lab setting by allowing students to practice in a risk-free environment, and helped them to build confidence in what can be a confronting new setting: working around many other students in a loud, busy lab.

The tool works so well because the teaching materials are written by students for students, in a very accessible way. With the help of undergraduate student, Mr Shane Dunne, we co-created instructional guides covering 16 key skills that first year students need to develop. They give step by step instructions and real-time guidance, videos and text, in a more engaging and interactive way than a lab manual. Students can reserve time to use the HoloLens outside of timetabled hours to improve their core skills. Since introducing the guides, we’ve seen vast increases in confidence. When we asked them, 100% of students strongly agreed that using the augmented reality guides improved their confidence.

We also offer live HoloLens demonstration sessions, with a PhD student in the lab conducting the experiments and students watching along in a lecture theatre. It’s a good way to introduce students to new skills before they have an opportunity to have hands-on practice.

Excellence in education 400 students have benefitted from the augmented reality approach since it was first introduced – 200 during the pandemic, and 200 since.

The project has won three awards: the inaugural Pearson HE Innovate award for most innovative hybrid or blended learning project, the LearnSci Teaching Innovation Award and Queen Mary’s President and Principal’s Prize.

With our ambition to be the most inclusive university in the world, we’re delighted that this new technology has helped us improve access to practical chemistry and helped all our students to achieve their best.