Impacts of Augmented Reality upon Memory Retention within History and Heritage Education

Technological innovation in the field of Augmented Reality has permitted for new opportunities within the field of education, allowing for exciting and revolutionary ways for learners to visualise and engage with learning content that have previously been difficult, expensive, logistically implausible, or even impossible. Despite this, there has been limited research into the efficacy of this technology for long-term memory retention and exploration of how Augmented Reality-based learning compares against traditional education mediums, a factor that is especially important when considering the potential costs of developing and implementing such systems. There is also little research into how much adult audiences can learn from such experiences, with most existing research targeting children of school ages instead. This study addresses this gap by investigating the use of Augmented Reality to deploy learning environments utilising different hardware mediums and different locations. to identify if they facilitate learning more effectively for long-term memory development for adult learners when compared against a traditional learning experience. Using a Microsoft HoloLens and a Leap Motion controller, a new method of Augmented Reality interactions was implemented to allow for learners to engage with virtual content along with a mobile phone application variant of the same learning experience. Participants were divided into four groups, each being tested with a different implementation of the technology and at different locations, who were then subjected to tests both immediately after their experiment and again three months later. Results found that learners retained the most information when learning through a traditional classroom lecture, although the use of AR did result in a slower rate of knowledge decay between the two testing intervals which suggests that although more is learned without the technology, more is retained with it. This directly contradicts prior research into Augmented Reality for memory retention, which suggests that previous research may not be applicable to adult audiences.