Augmented reality and gamification in higher education: Designing mobile interaction to enhance students’ motivation and learning

The emergence of augmented reality (AR) and gamification in higher education has gained relevance by virtue of their usefulness in learning spaces. Prior research has examined these technologies separately, but less is known about the impact of combining AR and gamification in the area of web development. This article examined how different educational materials on web development influence students’ motivation and learning in higher education. The educational materials included lecture notes, an AR prototype, and an AR prototype with gamification. A web-based experiment involving 95 students demonstrated that using AR could enhance students’ motivation compared to conventional educational materials, such as lecture notes. However, compared with using only AR, the combination of AR and gamification did not enhance students’ motivation or learning. The findings may serve as a basis to further AR in higher education and support authors in the design of AR in course literature.