Do learning styles matter? Motivating learners in an augmented geopark

Augmented reality (AR) technology has recently been applied to outdoor learning in an attempt to overcome the drawbacks associated with traditional teaching environments. This study conducted an experiment designed to examine how augmented reality (AR) technology in mobile devices can be used to generate virtual objects to create a context-aware, AR-enabled guided tour application for outdoor learning. The participants were 70 elementary school students (average age: 11 years), who were randomly divided into control and experiment groups. The results showed the proposed system provided learners with a friendly, interactive interface and rich, engaging media to improve learning performance and stimulate the students' internal motivation to learn. The system's quantification of the learning motivations noted in Keller's ARCS model and Kolb's learning style theory can be used to improve the design of the learning materials. In conclusion: (1) The proposed system and activity helps stimulate learning intention via the pursuit of outdoor learning objectives, (2) the AR technology provides learners with contextual information related to the outdoor learning environment, and (3) the benefits of the proposed model do not differ for students with different learning styles.