# A Review on Augmented Reality in Education and Geography: State of the Art and Perspectives
## 5 User Evaluation Methodologies Used for AR in Education  
As AR technologies continue to be integrated into educational contexts, especially in geography, it is important to examine not only the applications themselves but also the methodologies used to evaluate their usefulness. While the previous section highlighted practical implementations such as FingerTrip and ARETE, this section is dedicated to synthesizing the evaluation strategies used across these implementations. The goal is to better understand how educational impact, usability, and user engagement are measured in AR geographical education. One of the most often used approaches in these studies is the pre-test/post-test evaluation model [30]. This method assesses students' knowledge gain by giving a set of questions or tasks both before and after the AR experience. In the ARETE case, for example, students were tested on geography content prior to using the AR application, and the same or similar assessments were repeated after. The comparative results provided a quantifiable measure of content retention and conceptual understanding. This model is particularly useful for evaluating whether the interactive and visual aspects of AR tools contribute to more effective learning compared to traditional methods. In addition to direct testing, observational analysis plays a significant role in AR evaluation, especially in real classroom settings where student behavior can be watched over time [31]. During the FingerTrip testing, for instance, observations focused on how students navigated the AR interface, whether they collaborated naturally with peers, and how much time they spent engaging with the virtual content. These qualitative observations can offer insights that standardized testing might miss, such as student curiosity, initiative, or frustration with system limitations. Teachers' notes, researcher logs, and video recordings are often used to document these interactions, helping to evaluate the perception and flow of the learning process. Figure 7: Representation of GeoAR application. Another important aspect of evaluation is the use of open-ended feedback surveys to collect user feelings from both students and teachers. In multiple studies, including those discussed in the ARETE and FingerTrip platforms, educators were asked to report on the ease of integration of the AR application into the classroom environment and whether the system supported or delayed their teaching objectives. Similarly, students shared subjective impressions of usability, immersion, and enjoyment. Although such methods lack the consistency of quantitative tools, they are often essential for finding areas of improvement or customization needs in the AR devices. Despite the various evaluation strategies used across the presented cases, one common limitation is the absence of a standardized usability framework, which would allow more consistent comparison across different AR implementations. A recommended solution is the integration of the System Usability Scale (SUS), which is a 10-item questionnaire that provides a reliable evaluation of system usability [32]. Its adoption in future AR educational research would enable benchmarking across studies and ensure that the user's experience is evaluated thoroughly. SUS also offers the advantage of being easy to implement in classroom environments without significant time loss. Furthermore, mixed-methods approaches that combine quantitative tests with qualitative feedback are appearing as a best practice. These methods provide a more general picture, capturing both what students learn and how they experience the learning process. For example, a study may report improved test scores while also finding usability issues or cognitive overload that affected learning effectiveness. Combining pre/post tests, SUS scores, and student interviews offers an understanding of the overall effectiveness of the AR system. Finally, as the use of immersive technologies in education expands, longitudinal evaluations should be implemented.