The effectiveness of augmented reality-based mathematics education in cyberspace on student teachers’ lifelong learning and academic engagement

Nowadays, one of the most basic things in education and learning is the use of technology in educational environments. By using the latest technology in the world, the level of learning can be significantly improved and therefore, the level of public awareness can be raised. This study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of augmented reality-based mathematics education in cyberspace on student teachers’ lifelong learning and their academic engagement and also comparing it with the existing (traditional) method.

The research method used in this study was quasi-experimental research method with a pretest-posttest experimental-control group design. The statistical population of the study included all student teachers with elementary education major in Shahid Beheshti university of Hormozgan. A total number of 40 participants were purposefully selected and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups (20 subjects in each group). The control group was traditionally ran based on cyberspace (Adobe Connect), and the experimental group was based on augmented reality-based method in cyberspace. The participants in experimental group were trained in 6 one-hour sessions by installing Microsoft Math Solver application on their cellphones. Research instruments included the Lifelong Learning Questionnaire of Wetzel et al. (2010) and Academic Engagement Questionnaire of Schaufeli et al. (2002)

Findings of this study revealed that augmented reality-based mathematics education in cyberspace affected the student teachers’ lifelong learning and academic motivation, and increased their lifelong learning and academic engagement.

According to the results of the experiments, the performance of the experimental group in using mathematics education based on augmented reality in cyberspace and its effect on lifelong learning and academic motivation were reported to be useful and effective. Augmented reality technology can be used as an educational method that not only draws students' attention to the subject being taught, but also due to its appropriate and user-friendly visual interaction procedures, it can provide a deeper learning while allows for being integrated with reality and thereby, can be considered as a competitor to traditional teaching tools. Also, the fascination of this type of teaching increases the interest in the environment and leads to the enthusiasm and interest of people, which is one of the important components for learning. In general, the augmented reality-based teaching method increases the student-teacher understanding of themselves and boost the speed of learning, and as a result, leads to learning desire, which increases their effort. Expanding the information of student teachers in the field of augmented reality education and holding in-service courses for teachers and providing augmented reality-based education are some of the practical suggestions of this article.