Abstract:

In Malaysia, the Ministry of Education (MOE) launched the “Malaysian Education Blueprint 2015-2025 (Higher Education)” to specifically address the changes needed in Malaysian Higher Learning Institutions (HLIs) in order to ensure Malaysian graduates are able to thrive in an increasingly digitised future workplace. Of the 10 key shifts introduced in the blueprint, Shift 9 in particular touches on the need to increase the adoption of technology in learning and to make online learning a key component of HLIs. In line with this, Malaysian HLIs have been actively incorporating technology into their class designs by moving towards blended learning and focusing efforts on bringing the classroom online. With the onset of the unprecedented COVID19 global pandemic, Malaysian universities were put to the task in speeding up their adoption of online learning to cope with the challenges of continuing learning amidst the lock down due to the pandemic. Hence, educators have been exploring various approaches to designing exciting and engaging online learning environments to enhance student learning. However, while the online learning environment becomes more and more interesting, there has been a lack of focus on redesigning physical learning spaces to ensure the physical classroom is just as interesting and engaging as the online learning environments. Augmented Reality (AR) offers a way to design a physical learning space that is immersive and interactive, providing a potential solution to seamlessly connect the student learning experiences online and offline. This paper presents phase 1 of a research study that explored the design and development of an AR-based learning application that incorporated Authentic Learning elements as the pedagogical framework. The methodology details how the AR application was designed to incorporate the 9 Authentic Learning elements as outlined by Herrington, Oliver, and Reeves (2010), to ensure learning is relevant and situated in an authentic context. Student feedback was solicited to gain an understanding of their perceptions and attitudes towards the use of AR-based learning applications as part of their student learning experience. Results indicated that while students found this method of learning exciting and interesting, at this point they remain undecided about their intention to use similar AR applications in the future to support their learning.

Keywords:

Augmented Reality, Technology-enhanced learning spaces, Authentic Learning.