Wearable Sensors for Learning Enhancement in Higher Education

Abstract

Wearable sensors have traditionally been used to measure and monitor vital human signs for well-being and healthcare applications. However, there is a growing interest in using and deploying these technologies to facilitate teaching and learning, particularly in a higher education environment. The aim of this paper is therefore to systematically review the range of wearable devices that have been used for enhancing the teaching and delivery of engineering curricula in higher education. Moreover, we compare the advantages and disadvantages of these devices according to the location in which they are worn on the human body. According to our survey, wearable devices for enhanced learning have mainly been worn on the head (e.g., eyeglasses), wrist (e.g., watches) and chest (e.g., electrocardiogram patch). In fact, among those locations, head-worn devices enable better student engagement with the learning materials, improved student attention as well as higher spatial and visual awareness. We identify the research questions and discuss the research inclusion and exclusion criteria to present the challenges faced by researchers in implementing learning technologies for enhanced engineering education. Furthermore, we provide recommendations on using wearable devices to improve the teaching and learning of engineering courses in higher education.

Contextualizing privacy with wearable data in higher education

“…These devices can collect data on an individual's location, physical activity and various types of physiological information including heart rate, heart variability and skin conductance, to name a few (see Table 1). With the popular uptake of wearables in younger generations and public spending on edtech expected to increase, there is an increasing interest to integrate wearables into learning environments and educational curricula (Khosravi et al, 2022).…”

“…Names and email addresses…location information, ethnicity, gender, biometric data, religious beliefs, web cookies and political opinions can also be personal data’ (GDPR.EU, 2023). Personal data in higher education can also include learning data from learning management systems as well as integrated data from wearable technologies (Khosravi et al, 2022).…”

“…include learning data from learning management systems as well as integrated data from wearable technologies (Khosravi et al, 2022).…”

“…This high adoption of digital technology by consumers, however, is under‐utilized in the tertiary education field (Bower et al, 2016; Khosravi et al, 2022; Lee & Shapiro, 2019) and research of their application into higher education learning environments is consequently limited due to this low uptake. Reasons for low uptake of wearables are attributed to a perceived lack of feasibility, lack of pedagogical value, cost, distraction and technological issues (Attallah & Ilagure, 2018).…”

“…The main aims of using wearable technologies have been to increase productivity, improve the quality and facilitation of learning, provide feedback to modify learning activities and regulate behaviour (Almusawi et al, 2021; Attallah & Ilagure, 2018; Borthwick et al, 2015; Darnell & Krieg, 2019; Liang et al, 2019; Liu et al, 2022). Examples of educational research on wearables in higher education include but are not limited to exercise and health science courses (Wu et al, 2014), engineering (Bower et al, 2016; Khosravi et al, 2022) and accounting courses (Ezenwoke et al, 2016). Moreover, outside of the classroom but within the higher education setting, wearables offer unique advantages to certain student populations, such as students with disabilities and medical conditions, (e.g., it can increase safety to students by monitoring health and sending alerts for when to seek aid (Attallah & Ilagure, 2018)).…”