News Finding: "Mixed-reality games that support physical observation in the real world have a great potential to enhance learning and enjoyment for young children," the researchers say.
Paper Finding: The overall improvement from pre to post was 11.3 % in the mixed-reality conditions and 2.4 % in the virtual conditions.
News Context: They also determined that simple physical controls like shaking the tablet or pushing the earthquake button did little to improve either learning or enjoyment of the game. "Mixed-reality games that support physical observation in the real world have a great potential to enhance learning and enjoyment for young children," the researchers say. They plan to extend their mixed-reality game to different content areas to create a new educational system that bridges the advantages of physical and virtual worlds to improve children's science learning, understanding and enjoyment in a collaborative way.
Paper Context: The overall results (including both the prediction and explanation items) indicated that there was a significant effect of media-type (F(1,91)=8.2, p<0.01, d=0.37). The overall improvement from pre to post was 11.3 % in the mixed-reality conditions and 2.4 % in the virtual conditions. Thus, the mixed-reality game improved learning by 4.8 times compared to the screen-only alternatives.