A Role of Augmented Reality in Educational Contents: Intermediating Between Reality and Virtual Reality

Abstract

Many science education materials exhibit simplified models of nature. This simplification is beneficial to represent the essential characteristics of nature, but it forces the learners to cognitively assign the model to reality. This paper describes a traditional content exhibiting the lunar phase, which is taught in the elementary school. The use of multiple frames of observation and the necessity of dual concept required for perceiving the lunar orbital motion and Earth’s rotational motion around its axis creates an extraneous cognitive load. This study introduces a simple desktop model of the planets and a multi-view display of the model planets using augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). Eye-tracking experiments are performed to examine the role of AR to intermediate between the spatial arrangement of real objects and the VR display observed from a fixed position on an object that represents the Earth. The results indicate that participants who experimented with the desktop model took more time to check and move their eye gaze between AR, VR, and the real model, in the beginning phase of the trials. Therefore, it is suggested that AR intermediates cognition of a view outside of the orbit and a surface of the Earth.