An Augmented-Reality-Based Concept Map to Support Mobile Learning for Science

Computer hardware and mobile devices have developed rapidly in recent years, and augmented reality (AR) technology has been increasingly applied in mobile learning. Although instructional AR applications have yielded satisfactory results and prompted students’ curiosity and interest, a number of problems remain. The crucial topic for AR applications is the lack of appropriate instructional scaffolds to help students organize the content to be learned. Moreover, a lack of appropriate instructional activities and scaffolds often results in student confusion and frustration. Therefore, we integrated AR with concept maps to form a concept-mapped AR (CMAR) scaffold. Subsequently, whether CMAR improves learning outcomes, motivation, and attitude in mobile learning activities was determined. An empirical study was conducted on 71 fifth-grade elementary students in Southern Taiwan. The students were divided into CMAR and AR system groups. The results showed that students in the CMAR group performed significantly better than those in the AR group. The student interview results also showed that the CMAR system helped students organize what they wanted to learn.