Exploring Users’ Behavioral Intention to Adopt Mobile Augmented Reality in Education through an Extended Technology Acceptance Model

Abstract

Digitalization in education is of great importance, especially in era of COVID-19 pandemic. Augmented Reality can help to this direction, bringing a range of benefits in the field of education. Prior researches reveal that AR enhances the students’ learning outcomes offering significant pedagogical affordance when it is used in the tutoring of different domains, such as astronomy, biology, geometry, physics etc. However, the exploration of the factors associated with the acceptance of the technology of AR in education, is yet limited. This article aims to present valuable information to researchers, tutors and AR application developers concerning the learners’ behavioral intention to use such technology in the learning process. The motivation of this study is the increasing use of AR in education, offering significant room for future research, and its novelty is the analysis of the most significant factors affecting the actual AR system use. This study is based on a modified Technology Acceptance Model, consisting of the four core constructs and extended by two external variables, namely playfulness and quality output, in order to consider both pedagogy and technology. The population that participated in this research includes 220 secondary school students. The results show that the intention to use AR is positively influenced directly by quality output, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, and indirectly by playfulness. The findings help AR developers to understand the factors that maximize the user’s experience prior to the application of AR technology in the digital era of education.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 http://users.sch.gr/samgeorg/schoolar/wordpress/

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christos Papakostas

Christos Papakostas is a Ph.D. Student in the Department of Informatics and Computer Engineering, University of West Attica. He has received a M.Sc. and a B.Eng. degree from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace. His current research interests include augmented reality and adaptive tutoring systems.

Christos Troussas

Christos Troussas is Assistant Professor (pending appointment) in the Department of Informatics and Computer Engineering, University of West Attica. He has received a PhD, a MSc and a BSc degree from the Department of Informatics, University of Piraeus. His current research interests include personalized software technologies and human-computer interaction.

Akrivi Krouska

Akrivi Krouska is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Informatics and Computer Engineering, University of West Attica. She has received a Ph.D. and a B.Sc. degree from the Department of Informatics, University of Piraeus and M.Sc. degree from AUEB. Her research interests include social information systems and data analytics.

Cleo Sgouropoulou

Cleo Sgouropoulou is Professor in the Department of Informatics and Computer Engineering, University of West Attica. She has received a Ph.D. and a B.Eng. degree from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Technical University of Athens. Her research interests include software engineering and artificial intelligence in education.