Assessing the impact of an AR tool on middle graders' spatial problem-solving process

The PTSOT instrument measures the spatial perspective-taking (SPT) ability by recording the angular errors as one calculates the distance between an object's actual and expected spatial position. We use an Augmented Reality Enhanced Learning Environment (ARELE), GeoSolvAR, which has been shown to improve middle grader's SPT ability. Here, we report the problem-solving process of students who had worked with both the inquiry and AR components of GeoSolvAR (experimental group, n=25) and showed significant improvement in their SPT, and students who worked only with the AR component of the ARELE (control group) and did not show improvement in their SPT (n=22). We conduct an item-wise analysis of students' performance with the PTSOT instrument in both these groups. We find a slight negative, insignificant correlation between the reduction in average angular errors and the angular distance of target objects for the control group r (10) = -.36, p =.254, but a significant positive correlation between the reduction of angular errors and the angular distance for the experimental group, r (10) =.67, p =.017, suggesting that GeoSolvAR is effective for complex SPT questions based on larger angular-distances.