Gamification in an Augmented Reality Based Virtual Preparation Laboratory Training

Through technological progress during recent years, Augmented Reality (AR) technology can be used on ordinary smartphones with applications (Apps) in many formal and informal learning environments and educational institutions (e.g. [1, 2]). It is emerging as a suitable technology for teaching psychomotor skills. Simultaneously, gamification has become increasingly popular in the teaching field, providing famous examples, such as Duolingo (for the acquisition of foreign languages) or Codecademy (for learning programming languages) [3]. Many papers have already highlighted the beneficial aspects of gamification and AR for education and teaching (e.g. [1, 2, 4, 5]. While gamification is useful for improving students’ motivation and engagement, AR can be applied to teach them operational skills without any time, costs and place constraints. Hence, this opens up numerous possibilities and forms to combine these two aspects (AR and gamification) for higher education teaching. However, there has been less research focusing on how gamification and AR can be combined in a useful manner to keep up students’ initial motivation aroused through novelty effects of AR learning environments. Accordingly, this paper will present such a gamification concept for an AR based virtual preparation laboratory training to overcome the risk of demotivation, once AR will settle as a mainstream technology such as learning videos. The focus of the AR-App – presently being developed at the University of Paderborn – is to remedy the students’ lack of practical skills when operating electro-technical laboratory equipment during their compulsory laboratory training.