Empirical Research on Developing an Educational Augmented Reality
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Empirical Research on Developing an Educational Augmented Reality Authoring Tool by AYOUB GHARBI A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Informational Technology in Digital Media Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario © 2021, AYOUB GHARBI i Abstract This thesis studies the use of general-purpose Augmented Reality (AR) authoring tools in education and investigates the difficulties and drawbacks of such applications. While traditional education methods have proven their efficiency, academics constantly explore new ways to benefit from technology in education. Notwithstanding, elementary school teachers are tempted by the well-reputed success of incorporating AR in classrooms to enhance lessons, motivate students, keeping them focused, and so forth. They face, along with students, many challenges trying to adopt this technology to the curriculum. We scrutinized the literature review to sort and analyze some of the difficulties of using general-purpose authoring tools in education and deduct heuristic and reflect on how to counter those difficulties to develop an education AR authoring tool. We have developed and evaluated a prototype of an AR authoring tool made for education called CUAR (Carleton University Augmented Reality). Designed to provide elementary school teachers and students with a more practical and better experience than the current general-purpose tools. The 20 participants of the user study experimented with CUAR by performing multiple tasks designed for AR browsing and authorship and subjectively rated their usability experiences. The results indicated that CUAR is generally easier to use and intuitive than another AR general-purpose solution in the user study. Moreover, presented clear insights that helped us draw a roadmap for future work toward perfecting this solution. ii Acknowledgements First and foremost, praise and thanks to Allah, the Almighty, for all and the blessing of completing my so long wanted master’s degree. I want to express my gratitude to my research supervisor, Dr. Vicky MacArthur, for giving me the opportunity to do this research and provide me with guidance throughout my program. Thanks to my defence committee, Dr. Chris Joslin, Dr. Marc St-Hilaire and Dr. WonJoon Chung. I would also like to thank my program study squad for working together and learning from each other. I am extremely grateful to my parents for their prayers, sacrifices, belief, and unconditional love. My special thanks to my wife, Fadoua, for being tremendously understanding and supportive during the times when she needed it more than I did. My appreciation to my son Jae for perfect timing and being born just a couple of days after writing this thesis' final words. Finally, gratitude to everyone who has directly or indirectly supported me in completing this work. iii Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ......................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ............................................................................................................. viii List of Figures .............................................................................................................. ix List of Appendices ....................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................1 1.1 RESEARCH BACKGROUND................................................................................... 1 1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT AND SIGNIFICANCE .................................................... 4 1.3 CONTRIBUTIONS .................................................................................................... 5 1.4 RESEARCH APPROACH ......................................................................................... 5 1.5 THESIS OVERVIEW ................................................................................................ 6 CHAPTER 2: RELATED WORK ...............................................................................8 2.1 AUGMENTED REALITY IN EDUCATION ............................................................. 8 2.2 AUGMENTED REALITY: TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVE ...................................... 11 2.3 AUGMENTED REALITY: STUDENTS PERSPECTIVE ........................................ 18 2.3.1 Early childhood education (3–6 years old) ............................................................ 18 2.3.2 Primary education (6–13 years old) ...................................................................... 19 2.3.3 High School Students ........................................................................................... 22 2.3.4 Trinity Students ................................................................................................... 23 2.4 GAP ANALYSIS ..................................................................................................... 25 CHAPTER 3: EDUCATIVE AR DESIGN GUIDELINES ....................................... 28 3.1 PROCESS ................................................................................................................ 28 iv 3.2 GUIDELINES / HEURISTICS ................................................................................. 30 3.2.1 Devices and Infrastructure .................................................................................... 30 3.2.2 User Interface ...................................................................................................... 32 3.2.3 Assets .................................................................................................................. 34 3.2.4 Markers ............................................................................................................... 35 3.2.5 Learning Management System ............................................................................. 37 3.2.6 Integrity ............................................................................................................... 38 3.3 SCOPE OF GUIDELINES ....................................................................................... 39 CHAPTER 4: CUAR DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT .......................................... 40 4.1 SYSTEM OVERVIEW ............................................................................................ 40 4.1.1 Functional Analysis.............................................................................................. 40 4.1.1.1 Functional Requirements ............................................................................. 41 4.1.1.2 Non-functional Requirements ...................................................................... 42 4.2 CUAR PROTOTYPE IMPLEMENTATION ............................................................ 43 4.2.1 Usability Goal and Testing ................................................................................... 43 4.2.2 DEVELOPMENT AND SOFTWARE DETAILS ................................................ 43 4.2.2.1 CUAR Web Platform ................................................................................... 44 4.2.2.2 CUAR Mobile Application .......................................................................... 45 CHAPTER 5: USER STUDY ..................................................................................... 48 5.1 EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN .................................................................................... 48 5.2 HYPOTHESIS AND METRICS .............................................................................. 49 5.3 PARTICIPANTS ..................................................................................................... 50 5.4 PROCEDURE .......................................................................................................... 51 5.4.1 Trinity Participants Study ..................................................................................... 51 5.4.2 Pre-Service Teachers Participants Study ............................................................... 57 v CHAPTER 6: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .......................................................... 59 6.1 RESULTS ................................................................................................................ 59 6.1.1 Trinity Participants Results .................................................................................. 59 6.1.1.1 Single Ease Questionnaire Results ............................................................... 59 6.1.1.2 System Usability Scale ................................................................................ 64 6.1.2 Pre-service Teacher Participants Results ............................................................... 65 6.1.2.1 Group A ...................................................................................................... 65 6.1.2.2 Group B ....................................................................................................... 68 6.1.2.3 Group A and B Comparison ......................................................................... 70 6.2 Discussion ...............................................................................................................