The effect of augmented reality-supported teaching on students' academic achievement, level of learning permanence, and learning motivation in the solar system and beyond unit

The purpose of this research is to examine the effects of augmented reality-supported instruction on students' academic achievement, level of learning permanence, and motivation towards the lesson in the 7th grade Science "Solar System and Beyond" unit. A marker-based Augmented Reality (AG) application was developed through the Unity software. The research was carried out in a secondary school in Reyhanlı district of Hatay in the 2020-2021 academic year. The research sample consists of 54 students studying in 2 classes at the 7th-grade level, where the same teacher conducts teaching. The teaching process was carried out with AR application in the experimental group and course book, smart board presentation, video, animation, etc. in the control group. with the help of materials; lectures, brainstorming, question-answer, discussion and group work methods. In the research, a quasi-experimental design with a pretest-posttest control group was used. Training and data collection lasted for a total of eight weeks in the four-lesson hours each week. As data collection tools, the "Solar System and Beyond Academic Achievement Test" and the "Students' Motivation Scale for Science Education" for which validity and reliability studies were conducted were applied to both groups in the pre and post-application period. The achievement test was applied to the experimental and control groups as pre-test, post-test and retention test, and the motivation scale was applied as a pre-test and post-test. After it was determined that the test scores met the parametric test assumptions, Paired Samples t-Test was used for related measurements and Independent Samples t-Test was used for independent measurements. The collected data were analyzed using the SPSS software. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that the achievement and motivation pre-test mean of the experimental and control group students were statistically equivalent to each other. Then, the achievement and motivation post-test mean of the experimental and control groups were compared with the Independent Samples t-Test, and it was determined that there was no significant difference in the results. In the ANCOVA results, it was concluded that there was no significant difference between the post-test achievement scores of the experimental and control groups when the achievement pre-test averages of the students were taken as covariance. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that the achievement and motivation pre-test averages of the experimental and control group students were equivalent to each other.. Besides, the effect of AR on the permanence level of learning was examined, and the academic achievement post-test and pre-test of the experimental and control group students were compared with the permanence test, and it was inferred that there was no significant difference as a result of the Paired Samples t-Test analysis. With this result, it was concluded that AR teaching material had no effect on the level of permanence in learning.