The Impact of Teacher Training Using Mobile Augmented Reality Games on Their Professional Development

Abstract

Ongoing technology progress sustains innovative teaching approaches. Mobile devices, augmented reality (AR), and games are a few of the new resources that teachers have at their disposal to promote student learning. However, their effective integration into practices requires training, so there is a need to analyze the impact of training initiatives on teacher professional development. A case study is being conducted on the development process of mobile AR games for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) learning by 14 Portuguese in-service teachers in a 50 h workshop. This contribution refers to the analysis of this training’s impact on teacher professional development through a questionnaire filled in at the beginning and end of the workshop. This study registered a higher impact on teachers’ understanding of AR educative use, the less-known approach, compared to mobile and game-based learning. Moreover, teachers became more experienced with these approaches as learners, and reported having explored them with their students during the workshop period. Teacher ability to identify benefits and barriers in these approaches increased with the workshop, particularly the learning that could be promoted with mobile AR games. The presented set of barriers to implementation is relevant to future teacher professional-development initiatives.

Digital Storytelling in Education: A Transmedia Integration Approach for the Non-Developers

“…Such technology-enhanced learning methods have become very popular and effective when it comes to disciplines involving digital technology [14][15][16][17]25] and contemporary media literacy needs [1,32], which demand multidisciplinary topics [2], cultural heritage projects stimulating audience entertainment and participation [6,8,16,24] and serious games triggering infotainment and experiential education to elementary school users and older groups [3,5,29,30]. Popular examples of game-based and blended learning approaches are frequent in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) [50][51][52], where art is also gaining popularity and acceptance, forming the STEAM education paradigm (as an extension to STEM) [53]. To the best of our knowledge, related efforts are limited in such an integrated manner for teaching classical topics, such as the "Odyssey" [4].…”

We Playing Mobile Games Because We Bored? An Exploratory Study on University Students

“…Resorting to mobile games when getting bored is still considered a negative situation today (Billieux, 2012;Ebling, 2015;Siricharoen, 2021). Researchers with the opposite view emphasize the positive social and psychological effects of mobile games on the individual (Marques, 2021;Seok, 2018;Wang, 2016). Most of the studies on boredom seem to agree that boredom will eventually turn into anti-social behavior (Mann, 2016;Martin, 2012;Morris, 2004;Wegner, 2011).…”

The Use of Augmented Reality for Teaching Kazakhstani Students Physics Lessons

“…Education boards and departments must offer incentives to schools for adopting AR techniques, creating high-quality content, providing training, and fostering an institutional culture that favours the adoption and use of AR tools to improve educa-tion and learning. [26] has shown the impact of teacher training in promoting teacher understanding, adoption and utilization of AR tools in their teaching methods. Therefore, offering appropriate incentives that facilitate participation in such programs and creating opportunities for teacher development will help minimize the inertia and facilitate the move towards eventual substitution, modification and redefinition of educational activities using the AR toolkit.…”

“…In a meta-analysis, [27] has found out that AR has a medium effect on the learning gains of students (d=0.68, p <0.001). However, [26] shows that new technologies can sometimes be ineffective, uneconomical, and too complex for achieving the desired learning outcomes.…”