Chapter 18

Augmented Reality and Learning

in Science Museums

Susan A. Yoon, Joyce Wang and Karen Elinich

1 Introduction

Increasingly, informal science environments have been highlighted for their poten-
tial to improve science understanding and participation in daily science activities
and scientific careers (Banks et al. 2007; NRC 2009, 2011). There are many good
reasons for this, which include engagement, fun, and self-directed learning (Falk
and Dierking 1992, 2000; Little et al. 2008)—qualities that often stand in contrast
to traditional formal school experiences (NRC 2009). However, these unique infor-
mal learning characteristics also, in part, pose challenges in developing a deeper
understanding of science content and practices (McManus 1994) due to learning
that occurs in typically short, sporadic visits (NRC 2009; Silverstein et al. 2008).
One of the primary purposes of designed informal environments such as science
museums is to help visitors engage with scientific phenomena. Research in this do-
main has demonstrated that visitors can gain understanding of scientific concepts,
arguments, explanations, models, and facts even after just one visit to the museum
(NRC 2009). For example, conversations between children and their parents during
museum visits reveal that families sometimes integrate scientific resources gained
from their engagement with the exhibit with nonscientific knowledge, to make
sense of the exhibit content (Zimmerman et al. 2010). Despite the enormous value
of this and other similar research (e.g., Palmquist and Crowley 2007; Tare et al.
2011), these studies are largely qualitative in nature and present self-reported and
conversational data. Few have focused on knowledge improvement that captures
the added value of an exhibit in comparison to what visitors already know, and
even fewer have analyzed learning through experimental designs. Furthermore, the
extent to which visitors are learning scientific concepts and the supports needed to

S. A. Yoon () · J. Wang
University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, 3700 Walnut Street, 19104
Philadelphia, PA, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
K. Elinich
The Franklin Institute, 222 North 20th Street, 19103 Philadelphia, PA, USA
D. G. Sampson et al. (eds.), Digital Systems for Open Access to Formal and Informal Learning, 293
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-02264-2_18, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
294 S. A. Yoon et al.

do this are not well understood, as the NRC (2009) report suggests that overall as-
sessment of scientific knowledge shows little positive change. In light of this, there
has been growing emphasis on increasing the impact of these environments through
designing additional learning scaffolds such as postvisit web activities and follow-
up e-mail contact (NRC 2009). Technological tools for enhancing learning and en-
gagement in informal settings have also gained momentum (e.g., Falk and Dierking
2008; Hall and Bannon 2006) and can potentially serve the purpose of scaffolding
extended experiences to improve short-term learning.
Collectively, the NRC report (2009) outlines the need for essential research in
three key areas. First, while there is ample evidence that suggests informal envi-
ronments increase engagement and interest, fewer studies have focused on how
those experiences result in conceptual gains of science content. Second, in terms
of scientific skills, designed interactives have been shown to increase lower-level
skills such as manipulating and observing; however, more challenging skills such
as critical thinking and theorizing are less frequently demonstrated. Finally, as digi-
tal platforms are increasingly incorporated in informal settings, more research is
needed to determine how they enhance the learning experience.
In this chapter, we present our findings from our project ARIEL—Augmented
Reality for Interpretive and Experiential Learning—which investigates these three
areas of concern. Over the last 3 years, we have piloted and investigated the impact
of a field-tested, exportable, and replicable system for the overlay of augmented
reality (AR) interfaces onto fixed-position science museum exhibit devices. The
goal was the creation of an open-source exhibit platform that uses digital scientific
visualization to transform visitor interaction with traditional hands-on exhibits by
merging the experiential and interpretive aspects of the encounter. While the project
is ongoing, it has generated research findings of interest to the informal science
education and exhibit development communities.

2  Features of Museum Learning

Science museums are a specific type of informal learning environment in which

the setting is intentionally designed to facilitate free-choice learning (Allen 2004;
NRC 2009). Whereas learning in formal classrooms relies on teachers to construct
the learning experience for students, learning in museums is entirely dependent on
the visitors’ curiosity, intrinsic motivation, choice, and control (Falk 2004; Pedretti
2002; Rennie and McClafferty 1996). What is learned and how it is learned is at the
volition of the visitor. As a result, learning in these spaces is fluid, sporadic, social,
and participant driven—characteristics that contrast the highly structured formal
classroom experience (Honey and Hilton 2011; NRC 2009; Squire and Patterson
2009). Activities are often experienced in single-visit episodes (Falk et al. 2007),
and learning typically relies on the design of the spaces and the experiences and
responses they elicit in visitors. McManus (1994) has characterized typical visi-
tors as demonstrating scouting behaviors within museum exhibits, where they roam
18  Augmented Reality and Learning in Science Museums 295

around, encounter devices, and act quickly to discover the intended information.
Thus, more systematic learning studies are difficult to design. However, science
museum exhibit developers do intentionally design learning spaces that mix a vari-
ety of supports for learning.

2.1  Interactive Exhibits

One way science museums engage with visitors, to motivate them to stay and invest
their time, energy, and attention, is by offering interactive experiences. Ultimately,
the ability of an exhibit or a device to “interact” with an individual depends on an
exchange of action and reaction between the two, where a visitor acts on an exhibit
and the exhibit responds in some way (Allen and Gutwill 2004). These interac-
tive exhibits allow visitors to conduct explorations, gather evidence, select from a
variety of choices, form conclusions, test skills and hypotheses, provide input, and
sometimes alter an outcome based on their input (McLean 1993).
Because interactive exhibits allow visitors to participate in these ways, they have
been found to attract more visitors and to engage them for a longer period of time as
compared to static exhibits (e.g., Allen 2007; Borun 2003). In addition to enticing
visitors to stay, interactive museum exhibits also claim to increase visitor learning
and recall of exhibits and their content (Allen and Gutwill 2004). Essentially, when
visitors interact with these devices, their manipulation causes them to gain “under-
standing of science and technology by controlling and watching the behavior of lab-
oratory apparatus and machinery” (Oppenheimer 1968). Indeed, visitors have self-
reported learning knowledge and skills, gaining new perspectives, and generating
enthusiasm and interest through interaction with these exhibits (Falk et al. 2004).
As designing for effective interactive experiences in science museums continues
to be a highly researched area (e.g., Allen 2004; Allen and Gutwill 2004), media
and technology are increasingly being explored as tools that can communicate sci-
ence and foster learning, engagement, and interactive experiences (Heath and vom
Lehn 2008). While usability studies have revealed high levels of engagement and
enjoyment from participants who engage with these tools, there needs to be more
research that demonstrates how interaction with these tools mediates conceptual
learning (NRC 2009). “Ultimately, the goal of introducing new media technologies
into designed science learning environments is not only to modernize the experi-
ence and space, but to significantly improve the quality of the visitor experience,
including enhancing learning outcomes” (NRC 2009, p. 270).

2.2  Exhibit Labels

Additionally, museums also integrate posted graphic panels, or labels, (Serrell and
Adams 1998, 2006) that provide printed content to support the interpretation of
scientific phenomena. Typically exploratory in nature, labels have been found to
296 S. A. Yoon et al.

impact visitors’ experiences in various ways, including increasing the likelihood of

their understanding and their ability to find meaning in and enjoy museum exhibi-
tions when labels are written clearly to express the goals of the exhibit. Some stud-
ies have documented how different types of labels change the way visitors interact
with exhibits (e.g., Atkins et al. 2008), while other studies have investigated how
labels affect the type of conversations that ensue between group members (e.g.,
Hohenstein and Tran 2007). Ultimately, labels seek to increase visitors’ learning
and to contribute to greater cognitive gains (Borun and Miller 1980; Falk 1997;
NRC 2009) by framing perceptions, offering contrasting perspectives, challenging
assumptions, and providing explanations (Gutwill 2006). Labels, which offer es-
sential information to the understanding of exhibit devices (Wolf and Smith 1993),
are employed such that the visitor learns to see “museum things…in the varied
cognitive frameworks of scientific knowledge” (Borun and Miller 1980). In a study
performed at the Franklin Institute, Borun and Miller determined that the average
visitor reads exhibit labels and that these labels potentially improve their under-
standing and experience. Similarly, Falk (1997) found that visitors demonstrated
significant conceptual development when the exhibit was explicitly labeled with a
summary of the main message. Ultimately, well-written labels have the potential to
successfully increase visitor understanding.

3  Knowledge-Building Scaffolds

The use of labels in museum spaces serves as instructional scaffolds that are meant
to promote deeper learning. By directing visitors’ attention toward relevant and es-
sential aspects of scientific phenomena, labels enhance visitors’ comprehension of
the exhibit.
The use of scaffolds in educational technology applications has been researched
fairly extensively to support scientific inquiry and cognitive tasks (e.g., Quintana
et al. 2004). In particular, a long-standing program of research in the learning sci-
ences that is premised on designing learning environments through the intentional
application of technological and pedagogical scaffolds is knowledge building (Be-
reiter 2002; Scardamalia 2002; Scardamalia and Bereiter 2006; Yoon 2008, 2011).
This approach is centrally focused on the goal of improving ideas in the same way
that knowledge work is done by experts in real-world contexts (Scardamalia and
Bereiter 2006). Primarily applied in school classrooms, knowledge-building studies
have been shown to increase students’ scientific abilities in explanation, interpret-
ing and evaluating information, and knowledge advancement (van Aalst 2009). Stu-
dents also acquire deep theoretical understanding of scientific phenomenon through
collective sustained inquiry and research on problems that can range from what
causes leaves to change color in the fall in a grade 1 classroom (Scardamalia 2002)
to the complex influences of genetic engineering research with middle and high
school students (Yoon 2008, 2011).
18  Augmented Reality and Learning in Science Museums 297

The technological application, knowledge forum, and associated pedagogy

use educational scaffolds to enable public, collective contributions that shape the
knowledge constructed in the learning community. Such scaffolds include prompts
for consensus building, generalizations, differentiation between evidence and theo-
ries, and peer evaluation. For example, a prompt such as “My theory is…” encour-
ages students to use evidence to construct a more general understanding of a class of
scientific phenomena. Similarly, students can create a “rise above” note, enabled by
the archived database of peer exchanges, which is a distillation of an idea or theory
from a collection of previous peer exchanges that provide students with opportuni-
ties to think across diverse perspectives and to arrive at conclusions about how the
collective learning community views a scientific issue (Yoon 2008).
Collaboration also factors prominently into the knowledge-building approach.
By working with others discursively to problem solve, evaluate evidence, and
identify important shared understanding, students are able to more deeply reflect
on what they know rather than learning independently or learning through textu-
al modes. This decentralized, public, and distributed participation promotes what
Scardamalia (2002) calls collective cognitive responsibility, where the impetus for
learning is generated by consensus within the community rather than by the teacher.
From this set of theoretical and pedagogical descriptions, our series of studies uses
varying degrees of what we collectively refer to as knowledge-building scaffolds,
which include knowledge prompts, a bank of peer ideas, working in collaborative
groups, instructions for generating consensus, and worksheets for recording shared
understanding. However, because knowledge building requires the development
of a community with shared understanding, language, and goals, learning events
evolve over longer periods of time than informal environments may afford. Van
Aalst (2009) characterizes learning experiences that are less focused on the commu-
nity as knowledge construction in which students may collaborate in small groups
on tasks that require less synthesis and reflection on the knowledge-advancement
process. We have understood the limitation of our informal setting and population in
terms of achieving a true knowledge-building community in previous studies (e.g.,
Yoon et al. 2012b) but have, nevertheless, attempted to investigate how aspects of
knowledge-building pedagogy can be applied in informal environments, given its
success in formal classrooms.

4  Augmented Reality

In the most recent Horizon Report, the New Media Consortium (2012) discusses
the enormous potential AR capabilities have on learning and assessment in enabling
people to construct new understanding. AR experiences layer digital displays over
three-dimensional (3D) real-world environments (New Media Consortium 2012)
to provide access to normally hidden data, thereby allowing users to experience
and perceive the newly incorporated information as part of their present world. In
298 S. A. Yoon et al.

this way, AR serves as a scaffold by supporting the user with additional (virtual)
information, which might not be directly detected by their senses, to aid in their
performance of specific tasks. It is precisely in this scaffolding role that AR offers
the unique potential to transform learning at multiple levels.
In the past decade, practical uses of AR have emerged in fields such as games,
marketing and advertising, films, navigation, and for medical and military applica-
tions (El Sayad et al. 2011). Although newer in education, over the last few years,
there have been studies that illustrate AR’s potential for learning, particularly in
the field of science education. For example, Dunleavy et al. (2009) document high
student engagement and motivation influenced by the ability to collaboratively
problem solve and collect data in the real world in their handheld AR environment
called Alien Contact! Squire and Klopfer (2007) detail the impact of their AR game
Environmental Detectives on accessing students’ prior knowledge by connecting
academic content to physical spaces that students are familiar with. In Outbreak @
The Institute, Rosenbaum et al. (2007) document the affordance of their AR game
play to include authentic scientific inquiry and understand the dynamic nature of
system interactions. In these studies, the indirect correlates of student learning, i.e.,
engagement, prior knowledge, and processes in scientific practice, are important
outcomes of the research and provide valuable impetus for pursuing further studies
on what and how students learn in terms of scientific knowledge.
AR technology is also starting to slowly extend into museum spaces. However,
as most of these technologies are prototypes and still in the development stages,
research studying their use in museums is largely concerned with the design, evalu-
ation, and usability of these applications (NRC 2009). For example, some stud-
ies have investigated the development of guidebooks to support visitors’ naviga-
tion and interactions throughout the museum (e.g., Damala et al. 2008; Szymanski
et al. 2008), while others have studied the technological design, architecture, and
implementation of an AR system (e.g., Koleva et  al. 2009; Vlahakis et  al. 2001;
Wojciechowski et  al. 2004). While these studies do not specifically examine the
impacts on visitor learning, they do offer important insight regarding the general
effects AR has on visitor behavior. For instance, Szymanski et al. (2008) revealed
that the augmented guidebooks, which provided information about the artifacts that
visitors encountered, increased visitors’ exploration of the objects and led to more
content-rich discussions between them. Hall and Bannon (2006) demonstrated that
children’s engagement and interest increased when they interacted with several
museum artifacts that were augmented. Damala et  al. (2008) also tested an AR-
enabled mobile multimedia museum guide in a fine arts museum and found that
visitors enjoyed the playful content presentation that the museum guide enabled.
Asai et al. (2010) reported that an AR lunar surface navigation system implemented
at a science museum exhibit encouraged more collaborative interactions between
parents and their children. Collectively, these studies demonstrate that AR as a vi-
sualization tool has the potential to support learning behaviors. From conveying
spatial information about scientific elements essential to understanding and visual-
izing phenomena to increasing collaboration and engagement between its users,
18  Augmented Reality and Learning in Science Museums 299

Fig. 18.1   Be the Path

AR ­technology offers promise for transforming learning, and specifically, science

museum learning.

5  ARIEL Project

5.1  Overview of ARIEL Devices

To date, three devices have been digitally augmented and their impact on school-
children visitors have been investigated. The first augmented device is called “Be
the Path,” represented in Fig. 18.1. This device invites students to learn about elec-
trical circuits, current electricity, and conductivity. When the students complete the
circuit with their bodies, the digital augmentation is triggered, showing a digital
animation of the flow of electrons through them. If the circuit breaks, the animation
disappears. The digital augmentation draws students into creative, collaborative ex-
ploration of the topic. The posted label copy includes questions to spark conversa-
tion and guide collaboration.
The second augmented device, “Magnetic Maps,” is shown in Fig. 18.2. This de-
vice invites students to manipulate two bar magnets and feel the attractive and repul-
sive forces between them. On screen, the AR responds dynamically to the position
of the magnets in real time, drawing a visualization of the magnetic force field that
surrounds the two bar magnets. As the students move the magnets, the visualization
changes on screen, encouraging them to engage more deeply and for a longer time.
Finally, the latest augmented device, “Bernoulli Blower,” is depicted in Fig. 18.3
below. This device invites students to “make the red ball float” in the stream of fast-
moving air and to learn about fluid dynamics. On screen, a real-time visualization
of the variable air pressures illustrates where the ball is trapped between the forces.
The on-screen label copy invites deeper engagement and group conversation.
300 S. A. Yoon et al.

Fig. 18.2   Magnetic Maps

Fig. 18.3   Bernoulli Blower

5.2  Overview of Studies and Findings

Our research team has conducted a series of studies that investigates how digitally
augmented devices and knowledge-building scaffolds (Scardamalia 2002; Scarda-
malia and Bereiter 2006) enhance science learning in a science museum (Wang
and Yoon 2013; Yoon et al. 2011, 2012a, b, 2013). In the series, we use a quasi-
experimental design in which students in multiple conditions interact with a mu-
seum device using digitally augmented information and varying arrangements of
knowledge scaffolds. In total, we have worked with 710 middle school students
(grades 5–8) from a wide range of public and charter schools. Figure 18.4 provides
a diagrammatic example of one study in which data were collected from four differ-
ent conditions using the ARIEL device called “Be the Path.”
The first condition represents the exhibit device as it is presently on the mu-
seum floor, without any additional labels and scaffolds. In the second condition,
the application of a digital augmentation to an exhibit device provides a first layer
of interpretive support and acts as a primary scaffold. We then added posters and
worksheets with progressively more rigid layers of structure around the experience
to advance the scaffolding for analysis. For example, in the third condition, we
18  Augmented Reality and Learning in Science Museums 301

Fig. 18.4   Condition configurations of one study of the Be the Path device

included question labels that directed visitors to perform certain activities and that
prompted them to consider what the augmentation was showing. In the fourth con-
dition, we required group work as a strategy for measuring the benefits of collabo-
ration. We also provided several knowledge-building scaffolds including a bank of
ideas and sentence starters to measure the frequency of theory building. (For a more
thorough description of the different conditions, please refer to Yoon et al. 2012a.)
Several major findings have resulted from our studies of these three devices.
First, analysis of conceptual pre-/postsurveys reveals that digital augmentation can
improve visitors’ understanding of the science concepts that underlie the phenom-
ena being exhibited (Yoon et al. 2011, 2012a, b, 2013). We suggest that this is due
302 S. A. Yoon et al.

to the affordances of AR as a digital visualization tool to make hidden, invisible in-

formation visible, to reveal dynamic processes and interactions, and to interact with
the user (Yoon and Wang 2014). Second, students’ abilities to interpret information
about a phenomenon using knowledge-building scaffolds can improve cognitive
understanding (reasoning skills) in some conditions (Yoon et al. 2011, 2012a); how-
ever, this may come at the expense of the characteristics of informal exploration
that make informal learning environments so engaging (Yoon et al. 2013). Finally,
group work and collaboration have been identified as the most beneficial scaffold
for helping schoolchildren visitors learn (Yoon et al. 2011, 2012b, 2013).

6 Conclusion

One outcome of the project has been the emergence of an evidence-based ARIEL
learning model, which we believe has core relevance for research in augmented
informal learning environments. The ARIEL learning model includes four parts:
1. Exhibit devices with digital augmentations that respond to visitor action (AR)
2. Scaffolds for learning (scaffolds)
3. Social interaction through peer collaboration at device (collaboration)
4. Informal characteristics, e.g., free choice, playful, hands on (informal participation)
While previous research on the use of AR in museum environments has revealed
little about their impacts on learning outcomes (NRC 2009), we have found that AR
technology has the potential to significantly enhance learning of science concepts in
museums. Particularly because science is often concerned with products that are too
small or processes that are too complex or abstract, AR affords individuals the ca-
pacity to visualize and interact with these invisible aspects, thereby enhancing their
ability to then make sense of the information. Additionally, because of the nature
of informal learning, that it is fluid, sporadic, and largely facilitated by the visitors
themselves, incorporating scaffolds for learning and collaboration are essential to
designing an environment that supports and guides participation and engagement
toward deeper learning.
Through this model, we have seen important learning gains but they have been
modest in some cases, in part due to the unique challenges of participation in in-
formal learning environments. Our studies have investigated the tension between
informal and more formalized learning approaches, and we have pushed against
the boundaries of what typical learning scaffolds might look like in a museum, for
the purpose of enhancing science learning. We offer this model as a framework for
designing exhibit experiences that are not only fun and engaging but can also sup-
port deeper learning.

Acknowledgments  An earlier version of this research was presented at the CELDA (2012) con-
ference (Yoon and Elinich 2012). This research was funded by the National Science Foundation
DRL Grant #0741659. Conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are our own
and do not necessarily reflect the view of the National Science Foundation.
18  Augmented Reality and Learning in Science Museums 303

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