{"id":11366,"date":"2019-05-26T09:00:39","date_gmt":"2019-05-26T13:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.elearninginside.com\/?p=11366"},"modified":"2019-05-25T09:58:42","modified_gmt":"2019-05-25T13:58:42","slug":"a-group-of-researchers-designed-an-ar-geopark-to-test-what-motivated-elementary-school-learners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.elearninginside.com\/a-group-of-researchers-designed-an-ar-geopark-to-test-what-motivated-elementary-school-learners\/","title":{"rendered":"A Group of Researchers Designed an AR Geopark to Test What Motivated Elementary School Learners"},"content":{"rendered":"

What if you let a class of elementary school learners wander around a geopark with augmented reality (AR)-equipped devices<\/a> to learn about geology? Would they learn more effectively than a traditional class? And how would students with different learning styles fare? These are some of the questions a team of Taiwanese researchers asked in a recently published study titled \u201cDo Learning Styles Matter? Motivating Learners in an Augmented Geopark.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Authored by Tien-Chi Huang, Mu-Yen Chen, and Wen-Pao Hsu from the National Taichung University of Science and Technology, the article was submitted in 2016 but was only published in the latest issue of the Journal of Educational Technology & Society.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

An AR Component to the Yehliu Geopark<\/h2>\n

For their experiment, the researchers designed an AR learning module for the Yehliu Geopark, which is about a 40 minute drive outside of Taipei. An elementary school class comprised of 70 learners between 4th and 6th grades was divided into a control and experiment group. Every student had experience using mobile devices. The control was first taught a traditional course about local geography and then brought to the park to see it firsthand. <\/span><\/p>\n

The second group, meanwhile, was brought to the park with a mobile device that included AR learning modules relating to specific formations found in the park.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both groups were tested on their knowledge of local geology before the experiment. Their performance was almost identical. <\/span><\/p>\n

As the authors write, \u201cAmong school subjects, geology places the most emphasis on observation and authentic learning, in which rich geological natural resources can stimulate students\u2019 intention to learn. However, the traditional one-guiding-many method of teaching geology outdoors usually fails to arouse the individual\u2019s motivation to learn, and does not provide content that facilitates individual exploration by the student.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Yehliu
Yehliu Geopark. Image by Jacky W licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Based on previous research, the authors theorized that, among the AR test group, certain learners who favored different learning styles would learn more effectively than the traditional class, and vice-versa. <\/span><\/p>\n

For a learning style framework, the researchers referred to John Keller\u2019s ARCS (attention, relevance, variation, and satisfaction) model and David Kolb\u2019s learning style theory (data grasping vs. data variation).<\/span><\/p>\n

They asked the following three research questions before starting out:<\/span><\/p>\n