The potential affordances and constraints of using AR in Education

In this blog post, I will be offering a brief discussion on the affordances and potential constraints of utilising Augmented Reality (AR) technology within an educational context. Affordances have been defined by Norman (1988, p. 9, as cited in Churchill, Fox, & King, 2012, p. 251) as “the  perceived  and  actual  properties  of  the  thing,  primarily  those  fundamental  properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used”. My understanding of this definition in relation to technology is that affordances of a piece of technology refers to the potential uses of the technology within an educational setting.

One potential use of AR technology is through “location-based AR”. This version of AR can revolve around an interactive problem-solving video game such as having students work in teams to try to solve a suspicious death using team work and their knowledge of scientific concepts to understand documents, such as the victims medical history (Squire, & Jan, 2007). Squire and Jan argue that using AR to engage students in scenarios such as the one above serves as a form of cognitive scaffolding as they have to suggest potential theories around the victim’s death whilst holding one another to a suitable level of plausibility by using their own scientific knowledge to judge their classmates’ theories. However, the use of location-based AR scenarios are not without issues. Squire and Jan mention that a number of their participants found their immersion in the activity broken when the non-player characters (NPCs) were either in unlikely locations or if they reacted in unnatural ways when approached by player characters. Although I imagine these issues would likely be remedied following the play-testing of the game. There is also potential for students’ misconceptions to influence how they interact with a scenario, such as in Rosenbaum, Klopfer, and Perry’s (2007) study where a slight misconception around the topic of disease transmission caused students to believe they would become more sick if they remained with an infected person despite them already being infected and so leaving the original infected person would not have an effect. However, these issues have been attributed to flaws in the pre-game presentation rather than being a feature of the AR software itself (Cheng, & Tsai, 2013). Although this flaw is again an issue that would mostly be fixed through testing and adapting the pre-game presentation, much like how a teacher would change their lesson plans to combat a misconception once it is brought to their attention. Overall, location-based augmented reality could be beneficial for developing students' problem solving and communication skills if used appropriately and with great care put into the design of the AR features itself as well as into the pre-AR content such that students can gain the best benefit from the technology. As such, while it is certainly an interesting concept, it would likely be more suited to a revision tool or to allow students to apply their knowledge to real-world situations.

A potential application of location-based AR uses real world objects as potential points to deliver information to students, such as scanning over a tree and receiving a description of its botanical characteristics (Dunleavy, Dede, & Mitchell, 2009). Dunleavy, Dede, and Mitchell go on to describe AR as having the unique affordances of being more accurate to the real world, as well as the ability to work face-to-face with peers. A third potential affordance that they put forwards in their study is that the use of AR helps to promote kinaesthetic learning due to the physicality involved in using the technology, although this particular theory on learning styles has come under scrutiny in recent years (Husmann, & O’Loughlin, 2019; Idrizi, Filiposka, Trajkovik, 2018; Papanagnou et al., 2016). Despite this, some students and teachers still believe in the validity of learning styles, with some students preferring kinaesthetic learning compared to visual, aural, or reading and writing (Idrizi, Filiposka, Trajkovik, 2018). As such, despite the theory of learning styles being dubious, utilizing AR as a means of engaging students who have an affinity for kinaesthetic learning could be a way of keeping students interested in their learning where they would otherwise lose interest or motivation.

Augmented Reality is certainly an interesting concept that could be applied to education in various different ways to expand a teacher’s potential reservoir of lessons to ensure a variety of activities. However, the studies that have identified the viability of AR in education have focused on how the technology can be utilized within a science-based context. Unfortunately, this means that the style of activities that they investigate cannot be easily extrapolated to influence my own practice as a mathematics teacher. I believe this as while a science lesson could have students go out and use AR to find information on different types of plant cells by walking around school grounds, there isn’t a similar alternative for students to investigate in terms of pure mathematics. However, there are a number of apps that utilize a mobile device’s GPS capability to create a game revolving around geometry, in particular around area and shape, with students competing to get the largest area (Wijers, & Jonker, 2010; Wijers, Jonker, & Drijvers, 2010). A second potential use of AR is to use games that are insert images over the real world using the features of AR in order to help maintain student motivation and enthusiasm towards mathematics (Pritami, & Muhimmah, 2018; Tobar-Muñoz, Fabregat, & Baldiris, 2015; Wijers, & Jonker, 2010; Wijers, Jonker, & Drijvers, 2010), particularly in regards to students with Special Educational Needs like ADHD whom are more likely to lose interests due to their cognitive disorders (Tobar-Muñoz, Fabregat, & Baldiris, 2015).

Overall, augmented reality could prove useful to teachers, however, I believe that more research is required in regards to some subject areas to investigate how the technology may be utilized within the area. As such, I am hesitant to consider the technology for use within a mathematics classroom unless the software is able to integrate some form of problem solving into the gameplay to ensure that the app is furthering student knowledge rather than simply expecting students to memorize formulas and concepts without any depths due to memorization based learning methods having a negative correlation with results while investigatory activities have a positive correlation with students results, such as was found with Husmann, and O’Loughlin’s (2019) participants and the virtual microscopy.

References

Cheng, K. H., & Tsai, C. C. (2013). Affordances of Augmented Reality in Science Learning: Suggestions for Future Research. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 22(4), 449-492.

Churchill, D., Fox, B., & King, M. (2012). Study of Affordances of iPads and Teachers' Private Theories. International Journal of Information and Educational Technology, 2(3), 251-254.

Dunleavy, M., Dede, C., & Mitchell, R. (2009). Affordances and Limitations of Immersive Participatory Augmented Reality Simulations for Teaching and Learning. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 18(1), 7-22.

Husmann, P. R., & O'Loughlin, V. D. (2019). Another Nail in the Coffin for Learning Styles? Disparities among Undergradute Anatomy Students' Study Strategies, Class Performance, and Reported VARK Learning Styles. Anatomical Sciences Education, 12(1), 6-19.

Idrizi, E., Filiposka, S., & Trajkovik, V. (2018). VARK Learning Styles and Online Education: Case Study. New York: Pearson.

Norman, D. A. (1988). The Psychology of Everyday Things. Basic Books.

Papanagnou, D., Serrano, A., Barkley, K., Chandra, S., Governatori, N., Piela, N., Wanner, G. K., Shin, R. (2016). Does tailoring instructional style to a medical student's self-perceived learning style improve performance when teaching intravenous catheter placement? A randomized controlled study. DMC Medical Education, 16(1), 205.

Pritami, F. A., & Muhimmah, I. (2018, February). Digital Game Based Learning using Augmented Reality for Mathematics Learning. Proceedings of the 2018 7th International Conference on Software and Computer Applications (pp. 254-258). Kuantan, Malaysia: Association for Computing Machinery.

Rosenbaum, E., Klopfer, E., & Perry, J. (2007). On Location Learning: Authentic Applied Science with Networked augmented Realities. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 16(1), 31-45.

Squire, K. D., & Mingfong, J. (2007). Mad City Mystery: Developing Scientific Argumentation Skills with Place-based Augmented Reality Game on Handheld Computers. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 16(1), 5-29.

Tobar-Muñoz, H. F., Fabregat, R., & Baldiris, S. (2015). Augmented Reality Game-Based Learning for Mathematics Skills Training in Inclusive Contexts. Revista Iberoamericana de Informática Educativa, 21(June), 39-51.

Wijers, M., & Jonker, V. (2010). MobileMath: a location-aware game for mathematics. Education in the wild: contextual and location-based mobile learning in action – A report from Stellar Alpine Rendez-Vous workshop series, 20-22.

Wijers, M., Jonker, V., & Drijvers, P. (2010). MobileMaths: exploring mathematics outside the classroom. ZDM, 42, 789-799.