As Dünser et al. [5] note, although AR has been in
studied for over forty years it has only been recently
that researchers have begun to formally evaluate AR
applications. They reviewed research publications
between the years 1993 and 2007 related to the AR
field, finding that only ~8% described a formal user
evaluation. This means that in a more restricted scope,
as the educational application of AR, there are a small
number of contributions that focus on user evaluation.
With respect to the immersive nature of the
visualization display, there are interesting
considerations regarding using desktop AR
(visualization in the computer screen). Liarokapis and
Anderson [13] note that participant undergraduate
students at two departments of Informatics and
Information Science in UK preferred the monitorbased
augmentation compared to the head mounted
display (HMD) based augmentation which they found
distracting and difficult to use.
Sometimes, the benefit of AR in educational
contexts is linked only to promote motivation and
engagement among students. For example, Juan et al.
[8] developed an AR game for learning words. Thirty
two children played the game (using an head mounted
display display) and the equivalent real game.
Comparing the results of the two games, they did not
found significant differences between the two games
except for one question: 81% of the children liked most
the AR game.
Design of educational contents must be very careful
done. Park et al. [18] indicate that students’ learning
performance is significantly higher when seductive
details are presented under the low cognitive load
condition (narration). Their findings suggest that the
cognitive processes of selecting relevant information
and organizing this information into a coherent mental
model can be affected not only in a negative way by
seductive details, but also in a positive way if learners
have enough free resources to use this non-redundant
and interesting, but irrelevant learning material.
In this context, it is important to consider the
possible novelty effect associated to a new technology
like AR. Seo et al. [21] note that while 3D interactive
graphics seems natural even to very young children
(due to their exposure to 3D games), AR based
contents are very surprising, thus drawing great interest
and curiosity (at least for now). This situation
represents an important issue due to the difficulty of
separating the novelty effect from the true benefit of
delivering AR based educational contents.
Active or passive interaction with AR contents is an
important element of study, especially in the context of
primary education. Kerawalla et al. [10] conducted a
study to compare the use of AR, using the virtual
mirror interface (desktop AR using an interactive
whiteboard as display), with traditional teaching
methods to teach 10 year olds about the
interrelationships between the earth, sun and moon.
Their analysis of teacher–child dialogue revealed that
the children using AR were less engaged than those
using traditional resources, perhaps due to their passive
relation with AR contents in this study.
Freitas & Campos [6] conducted a study on the
design and evaluation of augmented reality for
teaching 2nd grade-level concepts like means of
transportation, types of animals and similar semantic
categories using and interface similar to the virtual
mirror used in Kerawalla’s work. Results suggested
that AR is effective in maintaining high levels of
motivation among children, and also has a positive
impact on the students’ learning experience, especially
among the weaker students, showing some
contradiction with Kerawalla’s results.
This work tries to provide additional experience in
the application of AR technology in an educational
context similar to [10] and [6] (primary education),
following the approach of the virtual mirror paradigm
previously described, and using AR as a tool to support
teacher’s explanations, making emphasis in the
analysis of the impact on users through academic
achievement, usability / satisfaction and motivation..