Learning from the real and the virtual worlds: Educational use of augmented reality in early childhood

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2019.06.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Augmented reality (AR) applications are becoming widely available to support preschoolers’ cognitive development and education. AR applications with educational features offer an exciting and unique learning experience by blurring the boundaries between the real world that children are in and the virtual world they see on the screen. Nonetheless, effects of blending these two worlds on children’s learning and the cognitive mechanisms underlying their learning with AR have not been discussed. To show why and how AR can have a unique contribution to early education, we review research on the ways that realistic and fantastical themes in narratives, and children’s making of connections between the real world and the screen affect their learning. In the light of those findings, we proceed to discuss the affordances of AR and provide a set of recommendations for designers. We argue that a well-designed AR application can support young children’s learning by (i) drawing children’s attention to the learning material and encourage them to reflect on the content by setting an unconventional scene for learning, and (ii) reducing the representational dissimilarity between the context where children learn new information and the one where they need to apply what they have learned. By providing an overview of developmental research on the effects of themes and screens on children’s learning, we aim to provide a psychological basis for the development of educational AR products targeting young children.

Introduction

One of the main motivations of parents for downloading applications for their preschool-age children is to support their learning of new information and skills [1]. Blending physical and virtual worlds, augmented reality (AR) offers a new platform for learning. It is already widely used in educational settings for elementary school, high school and university students [2], [3], but its implementation is more complicated for preschoolers due to the fast developing cognitive abilities of this age group. AR is a technology which plays with our reality perception; thus, one challenge for designing AR applications aiming at young children concerns their difficulty in learning from non-realistic contexts and screens. Considering that preschool years are critical for the formation of academic skills and intellectual development [4], it is important to explore the educational potential of emerging technologies, such as AR, for young children. In this article, we discuss this potential of AR regarding the relationship between children’s reality conception and their learning.

Through a touchscreen device, webcam, or a head-mounted display, AR applications blend physical and virtual worlds [5]. In this article, we focus on non-immersive screen-based AR applications where the system overlays computer-generated information to the physical world around the user, through a screen. Unlike other emerging technologies such as social robots and immersive virtual reality (IVR), AR already met the average consumer because it is relatively cheaper, easier, and safer to implement. Social robots have some hardware issues, such as speech recognition, to be ready for the daily use of children [6], and IVR has some psychological and technical constraints, such as being “too real” for children [7] and motion sickness. They are valuable tools for children’s learning, and they may be even better options than AR under certain conditions. Nonetheless, we argue that for the reasons that are expanded in Section 4, AR can be an optimal learning tool specifically for children at the preschool years of age.

With AR, users can simultaneously interact both with the real and the virtual worlds. This turns AR into an exciting entertainment and learning tool for children. Books are a prominent source of knowledge for young children, and children’s books with AR elements (e.g., My Very Hungry Caterpillar AR, Ernie’s Wish Trail) are becoming popular and accessible. In addition to books, there is an increasing number of mobile applications targeting young children’s learning in various domains of knowledge. To illustrate, AR applications aim to teach preschoolers about nature (Disneynature Explore, AR Diorama — Qurious Island), mathematics and geometry (Math Alive, Math Ninja AR, CyberChase Shape Quest), geography and the solar system (SmartGlobe AR), and reading (Letters Alive, Big Bird’s Words). In these applications, children can learn new information with the help of the interaction between the touchscreen and a tangible object, such as cards or a globe. While designers rapidly develop and release such applications to the market, cognitive mechanisms that underlie children’s learning from them have not received enough attention.

Hirsh-Pasek and colleagues proposed four principles for educational mobile applications based on scientific literature [8]. They argue that in addition to explicitly setting a learning goal, an application can have an educational value only when it enables children to actively participate in the process, includes engaging materials, provides children with meaningful experiences they can relate to, and offers a setting for social interaction all at the same time. A well-designed educational AR application can tick all these boxes. First, AR allows children to actively interact both with tangible and digital tools [1]. Second, children are observed to be engaged and motivated to learn while using AR [9]. Third, as an example of meaningful learning, children can relate the information they see on the screen with the familiar physical environment they are already in and their daily lives [1], instead of being fully immersed to a foreign setting as in IVR. Finally, AR creates an environment for children to discuss and play together with their friends [10]. While these criteria apply to educational AR applications as well, there is a need for a cognitive framework which will inform future AR implications with learning objectives. Children’s understanding of mixed realities needs to be placed within the framework, the one which must be built through an information exchange between researchers and designers. To ignite this communication, we hereby offer a psychological ground to the educational use of AR targeting preschoolers.

The aim of this article is to uncover the cognitive mechanisms underlying young children’s learning with AR by providing an overview of the empirical research on the role of reality on preschoolers’ learning. We believe that understanding these mechanisms will inform designers about the affordances and constraints of AR for the targeted age group. Hence, after providing AR examples targeting early childhood education (Section 2), we address the extent to which the distance between the learning context and reality affects young children’s learning (Section 3.1), in addition to children’s transfer of learning from screens to the real world (Section 3.2). We then discuss the potential effects of these aspects on preschoolers’ learning from AR (Section 4). In the light of research reviewed, we suggest that AR has the potential to contribute to children’s learning processes when certain conditions are met (Section 5).

Section snippets

AR in early childhood education

In contrast to the rapid commercialization and availability of educational AR products targeting preschoolers [11], research is predominantly conducted for older age groups [2], [3]. One review published in 2017 showed that only 1% of the studies targeted preschoolers [2]. Collapsing findings from all age groups, two reviews revealed that AR increases learning performance, motivation, and engagement of students although it may be difficult to use and may create cognitive overload [2], [3].

Reality and children’s learning

AR applications offer new information about the real world in a novel context for young children, which is a blended reality with seemingly fantastical elements [11]. Thus, to discuss children’s learning from AR, we need to understand if and how they learn from realistic and non-realistic contexts. Furthermore, although many educational AR applications targeting young children are developed for touchscreen devices such as tablets and smartphones, applying new information from screens to the

AR’s contribution to young children’s learning

As addressed in Section 3, young children evaluate the distance between stories and reality while learning, and they may experience difficulty in applying new information from screens to the real world. Although AR studies we focus in this article also use screens to communicate new information, the unique relationship AR builds between the screen and the physical environment creates the opportunity for an easier form of learning from screens. While it can be argued that mixing realities can

Future directions and recommendations

By offering a playful interaction between physical and virtual worlds, AR offers an engaging learning platform for preschoolers. Considering that reducing the distance between the context where new information is learned and the context where it has to be transferred assists learning [29], AR has the potential to contribute to young children’s learning by merging real and virtual worlds. However, this potential cannot be attained without a mutual flow of information between researchers from

Conclusion

AR has the potential of becoming a source of knowledge and development for young children. However, empirical research and multidisciplinary communication are needed to make healthy inferences about the effectiveness of educational AR applications. Answers to the questions we proposed in Section 5.1 will inform designers to develop effective evidence-based AR learning systems for young children, and will inform researchers to have a better understanding of children’s conception of reality,

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Dr. Tilbe Göksun, Dr. Deniz Tahiroğlu, and two anonymous reviewers for their feedback on the earlier versions of this manuscript.

Declaration of competing interest

No author associated with this paper has disclosed any potential or pertinent conflicts which may be perceived to have impending conflict with this work. For full disclosure statements refer to https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2019.06.002.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or

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