Development of AR Teaching Materials to Support Understanding of the Phases of Venus

Abstract

Astronomy is a science that requires students to develop the ability to move and link two viewpoints, the viewpoint from space, which is a bird’s eye view of the entire sky, and the viewpoint from the earth, which is observed from the ground. Thus teachers’ support for students to acquire spatial awareness involving these two perspectives skills is essential. However, for both students and teachers, as well as university students who wish to become teachers, difficulties have been pointed out in developing spatial cognition skills. In this study, we developed AR educational materials that support viewpoint movements which are based on the phases of Venus using a visual programming language on a web development environment, and conducted a survey on the improvement of understanding the phases of Venus for the university students. As a result, it was confirmed that the AR teaching materials developed on an open platform were effective in improving students’ comprehension. Furthermore, a questionnaire survey about the usability of the AR teaching materials received considerable positive feedback from both teachers’ and students’ perspectives. The study also suggested the need for improvement of problems in the AR materials through their use.