New Perspectives in Science Education

The ARTEfac project aims to develop a web solution for teachers and trainers to design flexible teaching scenario including Augmented Reality (AR). This solution, developed by researchers and engineers from Aix-Marseille University and a private company, is composed of a Backoffice for scenarios’ designers and a mobile user application. This paper is focused on the possible factors influencing the teachers’ behavioral intention to use AR models in their own classes. Based on the TAM (Technology Acceptance Model), the survey tool is a questionnaire previously assessing the Behavior Intention of use, the Perceived Usefulness, the Perceived Ease of Use, the Perceived Enjoyment, the Attitudes towards the use and the Aesthetic aspect [4]. Thirty-six pre-service teachers investigated earth seasons through an AR scenario during a science training session at university. The scenario included an interactive AR model representing the earth revolves around the sun using 3D objects. The users could interact with the model like stopping the revolution and rotation, changing the earth's inclination, etc. One of the pedagogical objectives was to make them aware that the seasons are explained by the earth inclination (and not by the earth distance from the sun which is a very common misconception). A multiple regression analysis, including the different factors tested by the questionnaire, shows that there is a significant link between the Perceived enjoyment and the Behavior Intention to use AR models in their classes. In contrast to earlier findings in different fields of technologies [1,2,3] no significant influence of other TAM factors such as Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, Attitudes towards the use, Aesthetic aspects of the AR model was found. External factors such as gender, or pre-teachers’ specialty (science, literature, etc.) do not significantly influence their intention to use. All these results will be discussed according to their limitations and the previous studies done in the same field.

Keywords: Augmented Reality, ARTEfac project, Teachers, Enjoyment, TAM factors.

References:

1. Joo, Y. J., Park, S., & Lim, E. (2018). Factors influencing preservice teachers’ intention to use technology: TPACK, teacher self-efficacy, and technology acceptance model. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 21(3), 48-59.
2. Kucukusta, D., Law, R., Besbes, A., & Legohérel, P. (2015). Re-examining perceived usefulness and ease of use in online booking: The case of Hong Kong online users. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(2), 185-198.
3. Weng, F., Yang, R.-J., Ho, H.-J., & Su, H.-M. (2018). A TAM-based study of the attitude towards use intention of multimedia among school teachers. Applied System Innovation, 1(3), 36.
4. Wojciechowski, R., & Cellary, W. (2013). Evaluation of learners’ attitude toward learning in ARIES augmented reality environments. Computers & Education, 68, 570-585