The effect of using augmented reality based teaching material on academic achievement and opinions of students

The aim of this study is to determine the effect of the course materials developed through augmented reality technology within the framework of the subjects related to the coding on the students' academic success and their permanence level in learning and their opinions about the process. The working group of this study is composed by the freshmen of Computer Programming who take the course "Fundamentals of Programming at the Fırat University in 2019-2020 academic years. The freshmen were divided into two groups as experimental and control groups. Experimental group included 34 student while the controlled student consisted of 30 students. The treatments have been carried out in sub-domains of learning as "Computer operating system", "Introduction to algorithm" and "loop structures" in Fundamentals of Programming course. The mix method where qualitative and quantitative research designs are used jointly has been conducted. While the quantitative data were gathered through an achievement test used as a pre-test, post-test and permanence test; the qualitative data were collected via semi-structured interview forms. In the quantitative aspect of the study, the quasi- experimental design with pre-test and post-test control group was used. In the qualitative aspect, on the other hand, the interviews have been carried out with the students experimental with different achievement level following the completion of the application. The achievement test developed by the researcher involves 30 questions. The average difficulty of this achievement test .55, KR-20 whereas the reliability coefficient is determined as .77. The achievement test for fundamental coding training was applied as pre-test, post-test and permanence test. SPSS 22 packaged software was used for the analysis of research's quantitative data. Arithmetic mean, standard deviation, percentage, frequency, Shapiro-Wilk test, dependent-samples t-test and independent-sample t-test were used for the analysis of research's quantitative data. Furthermore, the content analysis method was realized in terms of the qualitative data analysis. Quantitative data analysis revealed that the academic achievement of the students who are part of the experimental group where the augmented reality course material is used is quite higher than the students in the control group within the context of teaching of the subjects associated with the coding training. Accordingly, the permanence level in learning of the students who are in the experimental group has been specified to be higher than that of the students in the control group. In terms of the qualitative aspect of this study, the students' opinions as to the augmented reality course material, coding training of the augmented reality course material, the challenges they face upon using the augmented reality technology, the conveniences provided by this technology, the training objective and area of usage and methods apart from the training have been received. According to the findings, it has been suggested that the augmented reality technology has various benefits such as productivity, permanence, pellucidity and convenience and it is required to become widespread in other courses and fields. Keywords: Augmented Reality, Coding Training, Virtual Reality, Achievement, Permanent Learning