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EXTENDING NATURAL SCIENCES LEARNING IN PRE-SERVICE TEACHER EDUCATION USING AUGMENTED REALITY-ENHANCED INQUIRY

"As the world transitions to hybrid ways of working it is increasingly important that education is not left behind. The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated the need for teaching and learning to transition from face-to-face contact mode to remote, blended or hybrid modes of teaching and learning. In this study, a group of 32 pre-service Natural Sciences (NS) teachers engaged with Jigspace; a composite augmented reality (AR) application following an inquiry-based approach to learn identified NS concepts. The main aim of the research was to establish the usability of AR in PSTs’ learning and the affordances of AR technology as part of a teaching and learning design that could improve achievement in content tests. In a quasi-experimental design, data was collected through pre- and post-intervention content tests followed by post- intervention focus group interviews with all participants. A paired sample t-test was employed to establish a significantly positive shift in content test achievement before and after AR-enhanced learning interventions. Findings from qualitative content analysis revealed that students were able to interact and learn more with AR learning models due to their semi-immersive attributes and the associated text mediation added to the application. Participants noted that just reading a textbook or written text was not usually enough for the formation of mental representations. Gesticular actions like rotation, zoom in and out, animation, spinning, pulling and dragging underpinned the main interactions with learning artefacts embedded in the AR applications. Some important 21st century skills, including collaboration, critical thinking and communication were enhanced as students spent time exploring concepts and addressing difficulties in chat groups and social media platforms. The research also contributes primarily to the role of mobile learning devices and AR in enhancing remote and blended learning of science concepts. Some implications of these findings for pre-service teacher education (PSTE) include: an urgency to transform NS teacher training to include technology-enhanced learning of science concepts: reforms in school policy to integrate mobile learning technologies like AR for the teaching and learning of science which will aid teachers to innovate when teaching science. Some recommendations for future research and practice are also covered herein."