Abstract:

Introduction:
The digital economy is developing rapidly worldwide. Novel technological trends, such as cloud computing, mobile and social solutions offer a new range of opportunities for business services in the knowledge-based economy. One emerging digital technology which can offer a host of exciting and novel business opportunities is ‘Augmented Reality (AR)’. As it was already mentioned in 2010 (van Krevelen, Poelman) AR still has some distance to go before industries and the general public will accept it as a familiar user interface. However, this concept- rather than a type of technology- changed already our way to interact with computers and the educational paradigm (Hsin-Kai Wu et al., 2013), enhancing collaborative tasks, both face-to-face and remote tasks (Martín-Gutiérrez et al., 2014) in students- digital natives- and also teachers.
This paper presents an analysis of students and teachers needs regarding the Augmented Reality in technical disciplines, conducted between January-March 2015 in the Higher Education centers in Romania, Malta, Iceland and Lithuania.

Research methods:
To find the relevant needs for teacher, students and entrepreneurs, a cross-sectional multicenter survey was conducted in Romania, Lithuania, Malta and Iceland. The questionnaire included interests and perceived needs regarding the use of AR, as well as suggestions on appropriate training methods or key components. Participants are 354 undergraduate and graduate students willing to acquire entrepreneurial skills and young aspiring business entrepreneurs from the 4 countries mentioned before.

Findings:
From the 354 participants who answered the survey, only 105 ( 29,7%) had previous knowledge of AR, and only 19 (5.4%) actually had the chance of using it in a setting. Respondents indicated using AR in educational activities (IT classes, research projects, non-educational project etc.), video games, mobile applications or diverse applications. Participants who only knew about AR indicated various sources (school, projects, advertising etc.). Many of those were incidental, without being linked with a continuous activity. Expectancies of efficacy are generally high, with lower rates in the knowledgeable group (34% vs. 52%), showing broad positive attitudes toward new technologies. Almost half (45 of 105) of the knowleadgeable respondents indicated a training including AR related topic, yet only 8 of them could specified further the type of training involved (basical/part of a former project/tutorials). Participants favor participation on AR training; suggestion on training curricula and delivery method (not exclusively online) are further presented.

Conclusion:
One third of the respondents indicated use or previous knowledge of AR in educational setting. Among them, some enthusiasm can be found in its implementation in their future activities – teaching, learning or entrepreneurial ones. Still, key issues about where and how the AR functionalities can be used are merely vaguely understood. Future intervention should acknowledge how much of the educational content may be enhanced using the AR, and to independently evaluate how much (if any) of added value can bring.

Keywords:

Augmented reality, education and technology, engineering education.