The Effects of Augmented Reality Learning Experiences on Students' Academic Performance: A Meta-Analysis Review

Abstract

Augmented Reality (AR) has been widely concerned around the world in recent years for its immersive, vivid, and visual learning experience, but it is also accompanied by people's doubts and reflections on its learning effectiveness. Many systematic reviews have analyzed the usefulness of AR and the impact of AR on students learning. They also measured the effect of moderators, such as level of education, fields, control treatment, learning environment, display devices, the sampling size, intervention duration and pedagogical approaches. However, most of the previous studies failed to analyze the difference of AR on different types of academic performance, nor did they make relevant studies on the different effects of different types of AR applications on students' academic performance. This meta-analysis review studies the specific impact of augmented reality learning experiences (ARLEs) on students' academic performance. Moreover, the effect of ARLEs on different types of academic performance was also measured. Along with taking into account moderating factors such as education level and fields, we also examined the impact of different types of ARLEs on academic performance. The results show that: (a) the combined effect size of the included researches is 0.997, which is a large effect, indicating that ARLEs has a positive effect on the academic performance of students; (b) The impact of AR on the four types of academic performance in “the 21st Century” is significantly different, of which the learning and innovative skills has the greatest impact; (c) The impact of ARLEs on students' academic performance is positively correlated with student age; (d)Fields and AR types do not significantly regulate the main effect value. The findings of this study will contribute to the acceptance of ARLEs by teachers and students, and will provide a guiding principle for the rational development and application of ARLEs.