An Examination of Pre-School Children's Interaction Levels and Motivation in Learning English with AR-Supported Educational Toys

Abstract

In this study, the interactions of children in the English learning process with AR-supported educational toys were examined and the factors affecting their motivation were revealed. Based on the case study research design, this study included 15 volunteer children (10 girls, 5 boys) aged 5–6 years old. Children used AR-supported flashcards, match-cards, and puzzles to learn the English equivalents of vehicle names over the course of four weeks. At the end of the process, a total of 5 groups in groups of 3 were taken into the activity class separately, and their interactions while using AR applications were recorded with the camera. From the recordings, the interaction of the students with the material, their friends and their teachers, and their duration of occupation were noted on the observation form and analyzed descriptively. At the end of the implementation, interviews were conducted with 6 selected students. According to the results of the interaction, it was determined that the highest level of interaction was in the dimension of student-material interaction, and the lowest level of interaction was in the dimension of student-student interaction. In addition, the results related to motivation showed that there are many factors positively or negatively affecting preschool children's motivation in terms of attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction themes in the process of learning English vocabulary with AR-supported materials. It is thought that these detailed research results provide rich data for future research.