Effects of augmented reality applications on mechanical engineering freshmen's level of academic achievement and spatial ability in computer aided techinical drawing

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the Augmented Reality (AR) software's to be used in the Computer Aided Technical Drawing course of Department of Mechanical Engineering in Inonu University Faculty of Engineering to the students' spatial ability in terms of technical drawings of this course and their academic achievement. For this purpose, by using the software kits in AR technology, a Computer Aided AR (CAAR) software is developed which transforms the two dimensional views of the drawings of this course into a more interactive and tangible three dimensional views. The workgroup of the research consists of 33 freshman students from the Department of Mechanical Engineering in İnonu University Faculty of Engineering. In this study, from the quasi-experimental designs "the matching-only posttest- control group design" was used. The study was conducted with two groups, one is experimental and the other one is control group. For the experimental group, a CAAR software was developed to be used for the drawings in the courses for three weeks. In the experimental group for the first two weeks, drawings were made by using both the CAAR software and two dimensional printed paper. In the third week, the drawings were made by only using the CAAR software. For the control group, drawings were only made by using two dimensional paper printed figures with different perspectives. As a data collection tool, students' drawings of 3 different figures selected with experts' opinions are used. Drawings' of the both the experimental and control group were evaluated with the checklist formed by the 2 instructors of the course. In the evaluation, two different points named "Technical Achievement Score" and "Spatial Skill Score" were calculated for the students. By collecting the two points, students' total points were calculated. In order to support the quantitative data, students' opinions and researchers' observations gathered after the post-test exam each week were evaluated as qualitative data. The quantitative data were analyzed with Repeated Measures ANOVA which is a parametric statistic and the qualitative data were coded and evaluated with descriptive analysis. As a result of the analysis made, it was founded that there was no significant difference between groups but there was a significant difference for spatial skill scores of experimental group in weekly measurements. But in terms of the "Technical Achievement Scores" any statistically significant difference wasn't founded. Besides, both in the student opinions and researcher observations, it was pointed out that AR is useful software for the computer aided technical drawing course.