Design and evaluation a mobile augmented reality to enhance critical thinking skills for vocational high schools

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the impact of mobile augmented reality (MAR) implementations on critical thinking in vocational high school students. This study employed quantitative methodology, particularly quasi-experiment with a pre-experiment method. 120 vocational high school students, who have enrolled the accounting lesson in Class X, were examined to obtain answers to the two research questions. The findings indicate that students in the experimental class, who utilized the AR in their learning process, had significant enhancements in their critical thinking skills compared with the control class. This improvement illustrates that the implementation of AR has potential to promote the critical thinking skills of the students. To better understand these results, this study also examines the enhancement of critical thinking skills based on the six indicators of critical thinking skills—interpretation, analysis, conclusions, evaluations, explaining, and self-regulations. By comparing each indicator of the critical thinking skills, there are differences between both the experimental and the control class. The experimental class showed enhancement in all indicators but with significant improvement in conclusions, evaluations, and explaining. More crucially, through the learning process, implementation of AR technologies also instills the aspect of developing critical thinking skills