Version 1
: Received: 24 April 2023 / Approved: 25 April 2023 / Online: 25 April 2023 (03:40:30 CEST)
How to cite:
Katika, T.; Bolierakis, S. N.; Papaioannou, T.; Karaseitanidis, I.; Tsimiklis, G.; Amditis, A. AR Coupled With a Virtual Agent for Educating Towards a Sus-Tainable Way of Living. Preprints2023, 2023040873. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202304.0873.v1
Katika, T.; Bolierakis, S. N.; Papaioannou, T.; Karaseitanidis, I.; Tsimiklis, G.; Amditis, A. AR Coupled With a Virtual Agent for Educating Towards a Sus-Tainable Way of Living. Preprints 2023, 2023040873. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202304.0873.v1
Katika, T.; Bolierakis, S. N.; Papaioannou, T.; Karaseitanidis, I.; Tsimiklis, G.; Amditis, A. AR Coupled With a Virtual Agent for Educating Towards a Sus-Tainable Way of Living. Preprints2023, 2023040873. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202304.0873.v1
APA Style
Katika, T., Bolierakis, S. N., Papaioannou, T., Karaseitanidis, I., Tsimiklis, G., & Amditis, A. (2023). AR Coupled With a Virtual Agent for Educating Towards a Sus-Tainable Way of Living. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202304.0873.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Katika, T., Georgios Tsimiklis and Angelos Amditis. 2023 "AR Coupled With a Virtual Agent for Educating Towards a Sus-Tainable Way of Living" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202304.0873.v1
Abstract
Augmented reality (AR) offers an accessible, inexpensive, and rich user experience that has the potential to engage end-users in an immersive environment. Along with vivid visualizations coupled with virtual agents, this technology further develops learning interest in end-users, guides them in various tasks, and boosts motivation and productivity. In this study, we leverage the deep penetration of mobile phones in daily lives and their advanced features to design, develop and demonstrate an AR application (CirculAR) that offers unique user-environment interaction in a gamified way. CirculAR combines learning with enjoyment to help end-users understand fundamental sustainability and circular economy principles. The application has been showcased in a controlled environment to heterogenous audiences and has been shown to improve end-user engagement and motivation. First, participants older than 18 were recruited to showcase the technology acceptance and engagement towards circular economy principles through AR. Then, students aged 5 to 15 years old, along with their parents and educators, were invited to a treasure hunt game where our virtual agent ARis guided them through a map full of virtual experiences. Assessment and evaluation were performed through a survey and a questionnaire. The outcome of their analysis showcased an increase in the dedication and enjoyment of the performed activities, engagement and learning attributes given the AR virtual agent supporting functionalities. Observations during showcasing reported a need for more commitment from the younger audience compared to the older one. This application contributes to the discourse on mobile AR as a tool for the education of novel concepts with a high impact on our daily lives and decisions and aims to shed light on the design principles of educative tools.
Keywords
augmented reality; mobile AR; virtual agent, user engagement; gamified learning
Subject
Computer Science and Mathematics, Computer Vision and Graphics
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.