Hand-Held Mobile Augmented Reality for Collaborative Problem Solving: A Case Study with Sorting

Due to the advances in mobile technology, mobile augmented reality has been widely used for many disciplines. The ubiquity nature of mobile augmented reality supports a flexible, engaging and entertaining learning environment. However, most mobile devices are hand-held, and they require multitasking (mobile information processing and learning) that is a major hurdle for learning. This paper investigates the effects of multitasking of hand-held mobile augmented reality for problem solving. We design and implement a robust framework, and conduct a case study of sorting activities with two distinct groups: individual and collaborative pair settings. Experimental results demonstrate that 1) there is no significant difference between two groups in sorting without our proposed system, 2) there is a significant improvement with collaborative sorting with our proposed system. Test statistics confirm that our proposed system significantly improve collaborative pair sorting activities.