On capitalizing on augmented reality to impart solid geometry concepts: An experimental study

Abstract

Spatial reasoning is key to success in several fields, including learning solid geometry concepts. Due to their lack of spatial skills, some students struggle with solid geometry concepts. Part of this difficulty stems from the fact that textbooks illustrate inherently three dimensional content using two dimensional images, which causes some students to score lower than others on these tests that require spatial reasoning. We believe that students with poor spatial skills can benefit from our augmented reality environment. This study investigated the benefits of using augmented reality to teach solid geometry concepts and boost spatial reasoning. During our investigation, 24 students were randomly assigned to two groups. The 12 students in the experimental group engaged in an introductory geometry lesson using augmented reality, while the students in the control group received instruction in a traditional fashion. Before being exposed to the contents of both introductory lessons, a pre-test was carried out. Following the completion of the introductory geometry lesson, a post-test was conducted. Afterwards, a statistical test was performed on the scores of both groups. Our results seem to indicate that using augmented reality can be a slightly more effective approach to teach solid geometry concepts. More specifically, after being exposed to solid geometry concepts through augmented reality, all but three of the participants improved their previous test scores while eight of the 12 participants obtained perfect scores. Thus, we conjecture that augmented reality can be used to better impart solid geometry knowledge to students while at the same time engaging students and increasing their rapport throughout the learning process.