Challenges & Benefits
CHALLENGES WITH AUGMENTED REALITY
When it comes to the potential drawbacks of Augmented Reality within the Education Industry, we find that the most impactful pitfall is the possibility that some AR applications may be difficult for students to use. Much of this revolves around the issues of equity and creating accessibility options for students with certain disabilities. According to research done by Munoz-Cristobal (2015) well-designed interfaces are required, otherwise students may experience difficulties when using this technology. Moreover, they argued that "usability issues must be addressed because AR technology involves extensive user interaction. A recent study by Gavish et al. (2015) reported that an AR-using group in their study required significantly longer mean training times compared to their non AR-using group. They suggested that this result in part may have been due to the novelty of the AR technology" (Akçayir, 2016). Thus, we can make the conclusion that utilizing AR in education must be used for adding value to the teaching of a particular subject rather than incorporating it as a gimmick tool
Much of the other challenges reported involved technical malfunctions or application-related issues. Interestingly enough, many of the technical problems arose in location-based AR. "Global Positioning System (GPS) error is a problem caused by the AR application miss-perceiving a location and/or direction (Chiang et al., 2014). Similarly, “low sensitivity in trigger recognition” is more frequently experienced in location-based AR applications" (Cheng & Tsai, 2013). With this being said, it can be presumed that future advancements in this technology are expected to fix these current problems. Lastly, AR seems to have the potential to be somewhat detrimental in group settings. "Furio et al. (2013) also reported that when AR technology is used with large groups, it may be cost prohibitive, and normal class sessions might not provide enough time to implement some AR applications (Akçayir, 2016). Furthermore, learners are often found to be spectators rather than interactive participants.
BENEFITS OF AUGMENTED REALITY
Research has identified four main categories that AR can have significant advantageous impacts within Education: Learners, Learning Environment, the Learning Process, and Learning Content.
When it comes to the Learner, much of the relevant research has indicated that the greatest advantage AR has in an educational setting is the ability to increase engagement and interest levels. "Numerous studies have indicated that AR promotes enhanced learning performance (Chang, Hou, Pan, Sung, & Chang, 2015; Ferrer-Torregrosa et al., 2015). Lu and Liu (2015) stated that the students in their study adopted a positive attitude toward AR-enhanced learning activities... They appeared happy and playful as they “learned through play" (Akçayir, 2017).
Another study conducted by Chiang et al in 2014 illustrated that utilizing AR through a mobile device can indeed enhance academic achievement and student performance. Ultimately, "according to the authors, providing well-integrated and organized, relevant materials (e.g., images, texts, videos) can help to prevent incidental cognitive loads. This improves the students' learning performance" (Akçayir, 2017).
The Learning Environment was an addition area that was seen to house an advantage for AR in education. Other than enhancing the physical environment with virtual supplements, AR affords the "possibilities to manipulate and interact with objects, that is impossible in the physical world – for example, with molecules, atoms, planets, the globe, human organs and systems, and etc. With Augmented Reality students can actively participate in the learning process. They access learning materials through their own devices, actively explore nature, properties and behaviour of the real and virtual objects and interact with them" (Kiryakova, 2018), which in turn, increases collaboration among students.
Akcay, M. (2017). Advantages and challenges associated with augmented reality for education : A systematic review of the literature. Educational Research Review. Vol 20 No. 11
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), 449e462.
Chiang, T. H., Yang, S. J., & Hwang, G.-J. (2014a). An augmented reality-based mobile learning system to improve students' learning achievements and motivations in natural science inquiry activities. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 17(4), 352e365.
Kiryakova, G., Angelova,. N., Yordanova, L. (2018). The potential for augmented reality to transform education into smart education. TEM Journal. Vol. 7, No. 3. Pp. 556-565. DOI: 10.18421/TEM73-11
Lu, S.-J., & Liu, Y.-C. (2015). Integrating augmented reality technology to enhance children's learning in marine education. Environmental Education Research, 21(4), 525e541.
Munoz-Cristobal, J. A., Jorrin-Abellan, I. M., Asensio-Perez, J. I., Martinez-Mones, A., Prieto, L. P., & Dimitriadis, Y. (2015). Supporting teacher orchestration in ubiquitous learning environments: A study in primary education. Learning Technologies, IEEE Transactions on Learning, 8(1), 83e97.