Applying augmented reality in engineering education to improve academic performance & student motivation

Students starting at university are accustomed to using the latest generation of devices and technology for communication, leisureand work. All technological progress allows for the use of innovative learning tools in education, causing significant changes inteaching methods and the students’ learning processes. Augmented Reality (AR) in education is an emerging area, so this paperanalyses how this technology influences academic performance and encourages student motivation. We are starting from thehypothesis that the use of didactic material based on AR technology will improve motivation and the academic performance ofstudents, so new didactic material has been developed using AR to explain the contents of standard mechanical elements. Thisresearch yields results that indicate how engineering students obtain better academic results and are more motivated, when the newgeneration of technological tools is incorporated into the learning process. Twenty five first year students studying for aMechanical Engineering degree used AR technology to assist them in the subject of graphic engineering. During the study, acontrol group of twenty two fellow students used traditional class notes. All these students took an exam and two surveys to givefeedback on the teaching material: one for finding out the effectiveness and efficiency of the material itself, together with the levelof student satisfaction; another for assessing the level of student motivation when using the technology available during the study.The results showed a significant statistical difference between their academic performances, proving to be higher in theexperimental group; this group also showed a higher level of motivation than the control group.