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Journal of Educational Computing

A Case Study: Research

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Forces With the Aid DOI: 10.1177/0735633119854023
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of Augmented Reality

Marina Tomara1 and Dimitris Gouscos1

Abstract
In this work, we describe an educational approach based on augmented reality (AR)
and mobile technology that has been developed with the aim to engage students in a
learning procedure regarding the electric forces as well as Coulomb’s Law. Initially,
we present the AR learning environment and we explain its design principles with
respect to the educational goals we aim to accomplish. The idea behind the present
approach has been to present students with a novel learning environment that aligns
well with their familiarization with mobile technology and the pleasure they take in
making use of this technology, in order to stimulate their intrinsic motivation and
learning performance. In addition, we demonstrate the early results of a classroom
study performed in order to estimate students’ reaction to the AR approach and get
an indication of their motivation levels and ease of use, with respect to the AR tool.
Based on the study results, we conclude that students have demonstrated positive
attitudes toward the AR learning approach and we claim that mobile AR may be
incorporated for educational purposes in physics curricula.

Keywords
learning environments, augmented reality, physics learning, Coulomb force,
visualizing electric forces

1
Faculty of Communication and Media Studies, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
Corresponding Author:
Dimitris Gouscos, Department of Communication and Media Studies, National and Kapodistrian
University of Athens, Sofokleous 1 & Aristidou Str., GR-10559 Athens, Greece.
Email: [email protected]
2 Journal of Educational Computing Research 0(0)

Introduction
This study involves the design and implementation of an augmented reality (AR)
learning environment to teach electric forces to third-grade secondary school
students (14–15 years of age).
Evidently, electric forces as the result of electric interactions between charges
are not directly observable in the real world. To this respect, one can perceive the
learners’ difficulties in conceiving the underlying concepts of this process, let
alone observe and study Coulomb’s law, the formula that describes their
relation.
Regarding everyday school education, students often demonstrate little
enthusiasm toward traditional, lecture-oriented teaching schemas (Prensky,
2001). In addition, school practices do not always seem to keep up with the
ways modern children like to learn new things and communicate new ideas and
knowledge among them (Oblinger, 2004).
Recently, educational practices seem to be shifting toward mobile and AR
systems. AR technology is increasing rapidly and several AR learning applica-
tions have been developed to promote knowledge in many fields (Dunleavy &
Simmons, 2011; Wu, Lee, Chang, & Liang, 2013). For science education in
particular, AR’s intrinsic feature of enabling ubiquitous interaction with digital
information superimposed on physical objects seems to render this technology
appropriate for enabling the conceptualization of the unseen concepts that com-
pose the world of science (Cai, Chiang, & Wang, 2013; Cai, Wang, & Chiang,
2014; Enyedy, Danish, Delacruz, & Kumar, 2012; Kamarainen et al., 2013;
Kerawalla, Luckin, Seljeflot, & Woolard, 2006; Tomara & Gouscos, 2014).
In addition, AR technology that exploits the features of mobile technology
introduces a new potential for in situ learning without the need for special
equipment (Dunleavy & Dede, 2014; Teemu, 2018). Yet, given the limited pene-
tration of mobile devices in public schools for learning purposes, in combination
with the fact that AR technology has not been widely known until recently, there
is still a lot to discover regarding these technologies’ potential to support science
learning, particularly inside school premises.

Related Work
Recent studies suggest that it could be beneficial to integrate AR into science
learning in classroom settings. Cai, Chiang, and Wang (2013) conducted a case
study based on a convex lens image-forming experiment in two learning envir-
onments, one AR-based and another based on traditional teaching. The
researchers developed a convex lens image-forming AR experiment, transmitted
as video over the Internet on a projection screen in the classroom. Two groups of
eighth graders took part in the experiment. The research findings indicated that
most students displayed positive attitudes toward using AR to learn in physics
Tomara and Gouscos 3

courses. According to the project’s outcomes, most students like to make inqui-
ries and try new activities, including doing experiments by themselves. Among
other findings, the researchers observed that students preferred learning physics
with AR tools, since the AR instructional applications were reported to be
motivating, engaging and helped students memorize the results of the conducted
experiments.
The ‘‘Table-Mystery’’ game (Boletsis & McCallum, 2013), developed for the
Science Centre in Oppland county, Norway (Vitensenteret Innlandet), utilized
AR in an effort to provide an exciting and engaging educational experience
related to chemistry, specifically to the elements of the periodic table.
According to the researchers, the long-term project’s purpose was to examine
the effect of AR on providing engaging and exciting, short-term educational
experiences. For the development of the AR learning game, the elements on a
large print out of the periodic table served as the AR scanning targets. IPad
minis were given to each student team, as well as a chemistry book and a note-
book. The teams also had access to a PC to search for chemistry-related answers.
The game has been played and reviewed by both experts and students, and
according to the researchers, the survey suggested that AR can potentially
create an engaging and enjoyable educational environment.
A year later, Ibáñez, Di Serio, Villarán, and Delgado Kloos (2014) have
developed an AR learning application, in order to evaluate its effectiveness on
high school students’ level of enjoyment and learning outcomes, regarding the
basic principles of electromagnetism. During the approach, the students worked
individually, using tablets to interact with three-dimensional (3D) shapes that
represented the AR circuit elements of the learning environment. The research-
ers compared the outcomes of the AR-based application with those of a web-
based application. The results of the study suggested that AR can be exploited as
an effective learning environment for learning the basic principles of electromag-
netism at high school level.

Motivation and Objectives

The idea behind the present approach has been to present students with a
novel learning environment that exploits the potential of AR technology to
provide 3D learning contexts of collaborative, inquiry-based learning in class-
room settings and that aligns well with their familiarization with mobile tech-
nology and the pleasure they take in making use of this technology. In
addition, it was our aim to provide students with an AR learning environment
based on simple and locally available equipment, which could be easily inte-
grated in the school physics curriculum, not requiring neither the physical
transfer of students nor any special preparation regarding both the tangible
components and the AR interface, apart from a couple of printed pieces of
paper and a mobile device.
4 Journal of Educational Computing Research 0(0)

The main objectives of this work were as follows:

a. to describe the development process of the AR physics learning experience

and
b. to investigate students’ attitudes toward learning using the mobile-based AR
instructional environment and to estimate the degree of their motivation

We believe that our work contributes to the current literature, given the fact
that there is little experience in the use of mobile AR for science learning in
classroom settings by means of simple, inexpensive, and locally available
equipment.

Method
The experimental design and testing process of the AR learning experience was
conducted in three stages, described as follows.

First Stage of Development: AR Application Design

During the first stage of development, a literature review of studies relevant to
(a) research-based active-learning instruction in physics and (b) the employment
of mobile and AR technologies for science learning has been conducted, in order
to identify the effective characteristics of an activity-based physics learning
environment and to determine the main design considerations of the proposed
activity-based learning approach. Based on the findings of the aforementioned
research, we have reached certain decisions critical to the design of the presented
AR learning environment which we discuss briefly in the following paragraphs.
Regarding the structure of the AR learning environment, we have tried to
implement the design requirements proposed by Kerawalla et al. (2006). These
requirements are flexible content that teachers can adapt to the needs of their
children, guided exploration so that learning opportunities are maximized in a
limited time and attention to the needs of institutional and curricular
requirements.
To meet the first requirement, we chose not to follow a linear structure
regarding the individual activities. Instead, we preferred to let students freely
manipulate the relative position of the augmented targets and move from one
activity to another in a nonlinear fashion, exploring the relationships between
elements by altering parameters at their own pace and being able to repeat
previous steps of the activities, if necessary.
To provide students with guided exploration throughout the experience, we
have designed worksheets with instructions to help them manipulate the aug-
mented targets and encourage them to reflect upon the implications of their
actions.
Tomara and Gouscos 5

Ultimately, the learning objectives of the approach have been identified based
on the Greek curriculum. To this end, the AR model has been designed to help
students

1. investigate the attractive or repulsive nature of forces between like or opposite

charges,
2. identify the action–reaction interaction between charges, and
3. comprehend the underlying relationships among electric force, quantity of
charge, and separation distance.

Additional design choices were also implemented, to further support the

design requirements.
The AR learning experience has been designed to enable students experiment
on the learning environment in a collaborative manner, since several research
findings highlight the positive effects of collaborative learning and co-construc-
tion of knowledge (Tao & Gunstone, 1997; Vosniadou, Ioannides,
Dimitrakopoulou, & Papademitriou, 2001). Under this scope, we believe that
designing the present learning approach to be developed on mobile devices fur-
ther allows for the learners’ experimenting and making observations at their
school desks in a more collaborative manner, rather than being in a computer
class experimenting on a computer simulation.
Regarding students’ engagement in the learning process of core physics con-
cepts, it appears that their weaknesses in understanding vector representations of
quantities actually constitute possible causes of discouragement (Lee & Park,
2013; Nieminen, Savinainen, & Viiri, 2012). In Halim, Yong, and Meerah
(2014), the researchers have tried to investigate the potential of the arrow rep-
resentation of forces to facilitate understanding of basic force concepts. The
study results report indications of difficulties in identifying the magnitude of
forces possibly due to forces’ invisibility. To this end, in our AR learning
approach, we have tried to provide a direct, visual 3D representation of the
dependence of the forces’ magnitude and direction on the actual distance
value and relative position of the augmented charges, respectively.
Textual elements appearing in the application were very limited. According to
Ibáñez et al. (2014), the textual information necessary to guide and provide
educational content in the proposed AR approach sometimes may act as a dis-
ruptive factor. Moreover, Lee and Park (2013), in an effort to investigate the
effectiveness of an inversed, deductive approach to teach Newton’s law of
motion, have reported indications of students’ weaknesses due to low under-
standing of words in scientific context, as well as inability to decode physics texts
and therefore unfamiliarity with the application of scientific concepts in real
situations. Boletsis and McCallum (2013) also report students’ difficulties due
to scientific phrasing. To this end, we have decided to minimize the use of textual
directions integrated into the AR interface. In this way, we believe that students
6 Journal of Educational Computing Research 0(0)

are allowed to better focus on the words that constitute the verbal representation
of the respective physics concepts (i.e., electric charge, force, and distance) as
well as on the symbols commonly used to symbolize these concepts. This is par-
ticularly important, since the present AR environment is targeted to third-grade
students, who need to clarify such fundamental elements in physics knowledge
prior to being introduced to more complex concepts and mathematic formulas
as they move on to higher grades. The aforementioned choice has been further
encouraged by restrictions introduced due to the limited screen size of mobile
devices.
In their work, McKittrick, Mulhall, and Gunstone (1999) suggest that
instructors may directly guide students to focus on activities and observations,
in an effort to raise conceptual understanding before introducing the mathem-
atical representations of the observed phenomena. In this spirit, we chose not to
integrate Coulomb’s Law, the formula that ultimately describes the magnitude
of the electric force, in the AR environment interface. Instead, we have made an
effort to guide students through building the respective formula step-by-step, by
following instructions on the worksheets.

Second Stage of Development: AR Application Implementation

Ultimately, and with respect to the outlined design considerations, an AR inter-
face has been developed, targeting to

1. enable the visualization of the ‘‘unseen’’ electric forces superimposed on

virtual electric charges as 3D vectors;
2. allow student interaction with the real and virtual elements of the environ-
ment in order to observe the parameters that affect the electric forces, based
on Coulomb’s Law; and
3. allow students to observe and manipulate the educational experience in a
participatory and collaborative manner, sitting at their desks and without
the need for further equipment other than a mobile device and a couple of
printed pieces of paper.

The AR-based application was developed to allow for the augmentation of

electric charges on top of two simple, 5 cm  5 cm pieces of paper with printed
images that serve as frame markers, each representing an electric charge. Once
the mobile camera targets the printed images, the application augments them
with the electric charges and overlays the electric forces. The students can then
move around the augmented charges and observe the changes in the forces’ size
and direction as they alter the distance and relative position between the charges,
by moving around the paper cards. The students are constantly receiving
numeric feedback of the actual distance value between the augmented electric
charges as well as of the respective force value (see Figures 1 and 2). In addition,
Tomara and Gouscos 7

Figure 1. Augmented charges and forces in the case of opposite charges of different size
(Q1 ¼ 10 mC, Q2 ¼ 20 mC).

Figure 2. Augmented charges and forces in the case of like charges of different size
(Q1 ¼ 10 mC, Q2 ¼ 20 mC).

a simple graphical menu allows the user to experiment with the electric forces
between the augmented charges in terms of (a) charge size and (b) charge type.
The students can enter various numeric values for the charges’ size in the cor-
responding fields provided by the AR interface (see Figure 3); this action is
followed by a respective visual change in the size of the augmented charges
and allows students to observe the subsequent changes in the forces’ magnitude.
8 Journal of Educational Computing Research 0(0)

Figure 3. The AR interface that allows the learner to experiment with different charge
values.

In a similar manner, the students can experiment by changing the charges’ type
to observe the change in the forces’ direction.
From a technical perspective, the application deploys the vision-based AR
(Azuma, 1997; Uematsu & Saito, 2008) that is used for image recognition and
provides the users with augmented data only after they point their device onto a
specific physical object. The application has been programmed in CSharp and it
has been built to run on android mobile platforms (smartphones and tablets)
with minimum API level 18 (Android 4.3 ‘‘Jellybean’’). Unity 3D 5.4.03 has been
used as the development platform since it offered many relevant development
tools including the Unity 3D plugin for AR development.

Third Stage of Development: Instructional Tools and Assessment

The instructional design of the approach has been developed based on the out-
comes of the previous stages of development and with respect to the target
audience, class conditions, and available equipment. A worksheet has been
designed to guide the exploration with the purpose of both helping students
handle correctly the variables of the AR environment as well as targeting the
learning goals outlined previously. Students have been guided by the worksheet
in exploring the dependence of the force magnitude and direction on the actual
distance value and relative position of the augmented charges and draw conclu-
sions based on their observations. This task is considered particularly important
since, by formulating their observations and conclusions verbally and in writing,
students further establish their conceptual progress. In such a way, students shift
from mere understanding to leveraging the appropriate scientific ‘‘vocabulary’’
Tomara and Gouscos 9

to provide meaningful explanations of the investigated phenomena (Tomara,

Tselfes, & Gouscos, 2017).
In addition, assessment tools have been developed, in order to

1. explore students’ attitude toward learning using the AR instructional activity

and estimate the degree of their motivation and
2. ensure that the interface is functional and use students’ feedback to determine
how to improve system performance and usability.

To estimate students’ motivation, a reduced version of Keller’s Instructional

Materials Motivation Survey (IMMS) Tool (Keller, 1987, 2010, 2015) has been
used, translated in Greek and adapted to the learning material by the authors of
this work. The Reduced IMMS (RIMMS) test is a 12-item scale, and it has been
applied and proved to have good internal consistency and validity in measuring
learners’ motivation levels (Loorbach, Peters, Karreman, & Steehouder, 2014).
In particular, the RIMMS instrument scale is used to measure students’ motiv-
ation with respect to four dimensions: attention, relevance, confidence, and
satisfaction. In this work, motivation was measured by students’ average score
on each of the four subscales, accounting for attention (A), relevance (R), con-
fidence (C), and satisfaction (S). The following values have been used to indicate
students’ response to each item: 1 ¼ not true, 2 ¼ slightly true, 3 ¼ moderately
true, 4 ¼ mostly true, and 5 ¼ very true. Each subscale in the RIMMS comprises
three items as presented in Table 1.
To address the second goal, a simple questionnaire has been developed by the
authors. It consists of 12 items using Likert-type scale. The values regarding the
‘‘difficulty’’ construct scaled from 1 to 5 as follows: 5 ¼ none, 4 ¼ slight, 3 ¼ mod-
erate, 2 ¼ quite much, and 1 ¼ very much. The values regarding the ‘‘enjoyment’’
construct scaled from 1 to 5 as follows: 1 ¼ none, 2 ¼ slight, 3 ¼ moderate,
4 ¼ quite much, and 5 ¼ very much. The questionnaire attempts to target certain
aspects of the approach with respect to the level of difficulty (eight items) and
enjoyment (four items) students experienced during the intervention, as pre-
sented in Table 2. For this purpose, the average score on each item has been
calculated.

Results
Participants and Procedure
So far, a single intervention of four 45-minute sessions has been conducted. The
approach has been implemented in a Greek secondary school with one group of
13 third-grade 14- to 15-year-old students. Students were divided into three
groups of three and one group of four, based on friendship patterns. The experi-
ment was conducted in the school class (see Figure 4). Students had received
10 Journal of Educational Computing Research 0(0)

Table 1. Items in the RIMMS.

Item Dimension

1. The quality of the AR application helped to hold my attention. Attention

2. The way the information is arranged on the interface of the AR appli- Attention
cation helped keep my attention.
3. The variety of content, graphics, text, etc., helped keep my attention on Attention
the user instructions.
4. It is clear to me how the content of this learning material is related to Relevance
things I already know.
5. The content and presentation style in this lesson convey the impression Relevance
that its content is worth knowing.
6. The content of this lesson will be useful to me. Relevance
7. As I worked on this lesson, I was confident that I could learn the Confidence
content.
8. After working on this lesson for a while, I was confident that I would be Confidence
able to pass a test on it.
9. The good organization of the content helped me be confident that I Confidence
would learn this material.
10. I enjoyed this lesson so much that I would like to learn more about this Satisfaction
subject.
11. I really enjoyed working on this lesson. Satisfaction
12. It was a pleasure to work on such well-designed lesson. Satisfaction
Note. RIMMS ¼ Reduced Instructional Materials Motivation Survey; AR ¼ Augmented Reality.

traditional instruction of the subject 6 months prior to the intervention accord-

ing to the Greek curriculum. Students were asked to bring their own android
mobile devices after ensuring their availability and were asked to have prein-
stalled the application by means of Internet downloading.
During the first lesson unit, we had to handle certain issues regarding the
application’s compatibility with some of the devices. After selecting the most
appropriate devices (based on compatibility, screen size, and camera resolution),
students answered were shown how to use the AR interface.
During the following two lesson units, students experimented on the AR
application. The students interacted with the interface variables and observed
how these interactions affected the electric forces overlaid on top of the electric
charges. As part of the group, each student has been assigned a role: one tar-
geting the mobile device to the frame markers, one moving around the markers
and the third (the third and the fourth in the case of the four-student group)
reading instructions and filling in the worksheet guiding the intervention. The
students changed roles after one or two worksheet tasks have been completed.
During the last lesson unit, 12 out of 13 students answered the RIMMS
Tomara and Gouscos 11

Table 2. The Questionnaire Items Targeting Student Feedback With

Respect to the Level of Difficulty (Eight Items) and Enjoyment (Four
Items) Students Experienced During the Intervention.

Item Degree of encountered difficulty with respect to

1 The use of the mobile device

2 Cooperation with fellow students
3 Manipulation of the application menu
4 Managing augmented targets
5 Decoding of digital data overlaid on augmented targets
6 Entering or changing arithmetic variables
7 Distinguishing between real and augmented data
8 Decoding screen data
Item Experienced enjoyment with respect to
1 The use of the mobile device
2 Cooperation with fellow students
3 Manipulation of the application menus
4 Manipulation of the frame targets

Figure 4. Students experimenting in groups on the AR application.

questionnaire and the ‘‘difficulty/enjoyment’’ questionnaire (one was absent at

the moment of the test).

Student Feedback
Based on the results of the RIMMS questionnaire, a scale reliability test was
conducted to evaluate the RIMMS test’s consistency. The overall reliability of
12 Journal of Educational Computing Research 0(0)

Table 3. Reliability of the RIMMS Test (n ¼ 12).

Scale Cronbach’s alpha

Attention .94
Relevance .92
Confidence .94
Satisfaction .75
Total .97
Note. RIMMS ¼ Reduced Instructional Materials Motivation
Survey.

Table 4. Students’ Average Scores on the Four Subscales of the

RIMMS Questionnaire (n ¼ 12).

Item Minimum Maximum Mean

Attention 3.75 4.33 4.03

Relevance 3.75 4.58 4.11
Confidence 3.33 4.08 3.72
Satisfaction 4.25 4.92 4.61
Total 3.33 4.92 4.14
Note. RIMMS ¼ Reduced Instructional Materials Motivation Survey.

each scale on Cronbach’s alpha is summarized in Table 3. The data suggest a

good reliability of the test results. Although the Cronbach’s alpha value for
satisfaction is significantly lower compared with the values of the other four
dimensions, it can still be considered acceptable (George & Mallery, 2003).
The measured motivation results based on the average score on each of the
four subscales of the RIMMS are summarized in Table 4.
In the attention dimension, the total mean score was 4.03, indicating upper-
medium attention levels. In the relevance dimension, the total mean score was
4.11, which implies that learners were quite convinced that the learning materials
were relevant to their interest, with respect to the learning object. In the confi-
dence dimension, the total mean score was 3.72, indicating a confidence level
well above average. Finally, based on the mean score in the satisfaction dimen-
sion (M ¼ 4.61), we can assume that students experienced a high sense of satis-
faction during the approach.
Based on the results of the ‘‘difficulty/enjoyment’’ questionnaire, a scale reli-
ability test has also been conducted to evaluate its consistency. The reliability of
both sets of questions on Cronbach’s alpha is presented in Table 5, suggesting a
good internal consistency of the questionnaire.
Tomara and Gouscos 13

Table 5. Reliability of the ‘‘Difficulty/Enjoyment’’ Questionnaire

(n ¼ 12).

Scale Cronbach’s alpha

Experienced difficulty (eight items) .97

Experienced enjoyment (four items) .93

Table 6. Students’ Average Scores on the Two Constructs of the ‘‘Difficulty/Enjoyment’’

Questionnaire (n ¼ 12).

Item Degree of encountered difficulty with respect to Mean score

1 The use of the mobile device 4.67

2 Cooperation with fellow students 4.25
3 Manipulation of the application menus 4.25
4 Managing frame targets 4.58
5 Decoding of digital data overlaid on frame targets 4.17
6 Changing application parameters 3.75
7 Distinguishing between real and augmented data 4.08
8 Decoding screen data 4.17
Item Experienced enjoyment with respect to

1 The use of the mobile device 4.75

2 Cooperation with fellow students 4.17
3 Manipulation of the application menus 4.00
4 Manipulation of the frame targets 4.00

The results of the survey (see Table 6) indicate that students found it quite
straightforward to handle the AR application. In particular, students encoun-
tered almost no difficulty in using the mobile devices during the approach
(M ¼ 4.67). They manipulated rather smoothly both the augmented targets
(M ¼ 4.58) and the application menus (M ¼ 4.25), distinguishing with relative
ease between real-world objects and augmented data (M ¼ 4.08) and decoding
digital data overlaid on augmented targets with minor effort (M ¼ 4.17). In
addition, they cooperated rather effortlessly with their fellow students
(M ¼ 4.25). Finally, they encountered a certain difficulty with respect to entering
or modifying numeric variables (M ¼ 3.75), such as charge values. On the other
hand, students appeared to have experienced high levels of enjoyment in terms
of using the mobile devices (M ¼ 4.75) and cooperating with fellow students
(M ¼ 4.17). In addition, they were rather pleased with the manipulation of the
augmented targets (M ¼ 4.00) and the application menus (M ¼ 4.00).
14 Journal of Educational Computing Research 0(0)

Discussion
Regarding the students’ reaction to the AR learning approach, we can claim that
they responded with enthusiasm, followed instructions easily, and seemed very
comfortable with the use of mobile devices as a learning tool. They adapted
quickly to the novel conditions and followed instructions without being disori-
ented neither by the use of the mobile device nor by the target manipulation.
Based on both observation of the students in the process of using the AR
environment and post examination of the worksheets they followed, it appeared
that students encountered little or no difficulty in perceiving the visual represen-
tation of forces by augmented arrows of variable size on top of the augmented
charges. We believe that this fact facilitated students’ understanding of the quali-
tative relation of the forces’ size to the charges’ values and distance.
Yet, the measurable dependence of the aforementioned quantities based on
the numeric data on the screen of the AR interface appeared to be less straight-
forward; although students seemed to perceive the qualitative dependence of
forces from the charges’ size based on the visual representation of forces by
arrows of variable size, they demonstrated difficulties in exploiting the relevant
numeric data on the screen to draw conclusions. This last observation could be
possibly attributed to the fact that students tended to pay more attention to the
graphical evolution of augmented elements rather than to numeric values on
the screen of the device. To this end, we believe that attention is required during
the design of similar approaches regarding the integration of arithmetic data
to the AR application interface.
Overall, the outcomes of the intervention were very encouraging, which we
believe fortifies the argument that AR and mobile technology may be leveraged
for educational purposes in physics curricula, in order to synchronize with
modern students’ interests and ways of learning and communicating. This
type of AR learning experiences, requiring no special equipment or physical
transfer of students, may be easily incorporated into physics curricula in order
to strengthen students’ stable and consistent understanding of physics concepts.
We believe that such approaches would allow students to enhance their physics
learning with suitable AR learning environments by means of short-duration
AR experimenting on a daily basis and in a time-saving manner. In such ways,
we may eventually be able to offer students more interesting, enjoyable and thus
more effective learning experiences.
Future work is required in order to further evaluate the parameters that
potentially affect the AR approach as well as to assess its learning outcomes.
Regarding our future aims, we wish to further investigate the potential learning
benefits of the AR approach. In addition, we wish to expand the AR approach
to other instruction units of physics with the aim to confront conceptual barriers
and alternative conceptions in students’ thinking regarding key concepts in phys-
ics learning, such as velocity and force.
Tomara and Gouscos 15

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article.

ORCID iD
Marina Tomara https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6470-8943
Dimitris Gouscos https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9252-8686

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Tomara and Gouscos 17

Author Biographies
Marina Tomara is a PhD candidate in the Department of Communication and
Media Studies at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.
Her doctoral research investigates the potential of AR technology for helping
students develop deep understanding of key concepts in physics. She is also a
science teacher in Greek secondary education. She received her BSc in Physics
from the University of Patras, Greece. She holds an MSc in Electronics and
Radio electronics and an MA in Information and Communication Technologies
for Education, both from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens,
Greece. Her research interests include game-based learning, mobile learning,
simulations for science teaching, and the use of microcontrollers in science
education.

Dimitris Gouscos is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication

and Media Studies of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens,
Greece and a Research Fellow of the Laboratory of New Technologies in
Communication, Education, and the Mass Media. His research interests include
digital communication, playful technology-enhanced learning, public participa-
tion, and electronic governance. More information available at http://www.
media.uoa.gr/gouscos.