Research competence, intrinsic motivation, and cognitive load of high school students after their participation in a student laboratory using the IBL or GBIL approach

The dataset, titled "Research competence, intrinsic motivation, and cognitive load of high school students after their participation in a student laboratory using the IBL or GBIL approach", provides data on the development of research competence (pre- and post-participation), intrinsic motivation (post-participation), and perceived cognitive load (post-participation) of high school students in Rhineland-Palatinate after participating in student laboratories using two different approaches: Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) and Game-Based Inquiry Learning (GBIL). Data were collected from September 2025 to March 2026 at the RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau. These data form the basis for comparing the two approaches in terms of their potential to foster research competence and intrinsic motivation and to reduce cognitive load.