EXPLORATION ON THE AFFECTIVE STATES AND LEARNING DURING AN AUGMENTED REALITY SESSION

Abstract

A wide variety of educational practices are supported through Augmented Reality (AR) technology achieving high level of engagement and motivation that are central concepts in different learning theories. AR is adopted in classroom sessions as well as in outdoor activities using desktop, web-based or mobile applications. It is a suitable supplementary tool extending educational scenarios in blended learning, online learning, formal and informal learning, self-paced learning. AR is seen as a catalyst for knowledge construction and transfer posing the learner in the role of an active participant who explores and experiments in a unique technological environment. Successful learning practices are well described showing the potential of AR to promote creativity, curiosity and discovering approach at gathering new knowledge or applying existing facts. As it can be seen the positive results of AR implementation on learning outcomes are well studied and documented, but this does not reveal the causes of that. On the other hand, the cognitive process, learning and affective circumstances are strongly connected as it is proved in scientific reports of psychologists, neuroscientists and educational experts.The gained results from an experiment with teachers from primary school related to the influence of Augmented Reality (AR) technology on affective states and learning are presented. Positive and negative emotions are important part in teachers' preparation of pedagogical content, curriculum development and relationship creation with children. According to the teacher's pedagogical strategy and presented content different emotions could be induced to pupils. The findings point that AR technology based learning objects play an important role to settle emotions and feelings like concerned, attentive, enthusiastic, excited, activated, with new idea, joyful. Successful learning practices are well described showing the potential of AR to promote creativity, curiosity and discovering approach at gathering new knowledge or applying existing facts. A wide range of research publications demonstrate that the appropriate affective learner's states can lead to the effective learning. The importance of positive emotions on stimulation of creative thinking, efficacy in decision making and in support of problem solving is explored too. The relationship among AR technology usage, resulting emotions and learning achievements are not explored and it is a challenge producing several research questions like: How does AR technology influence on the learners affective states?, How the learners emotions evolve during an AR session?, How the correlation among AR technology and emotions reflect on the learning experience? The research methodology includes three main procedures: (1) literature review about the important emotions for a learning process, (2) creation of exploratory tools for emotions gathering during an AR session, (3) experiment organization and result analysis.