Mobile Augmented Reality in Vocational Education and Training

In Vocational Education and Training (VET) institutions, teachers face important difficulties in the teaching process due to a wide variety of student's special educational needs as well as student's lack of: the adequate level of basic competence, motivation, concentration, attention, confidence and background knowledge, among other aspects. Regarding the attention to these aspects, many studies have reported positive impact of Augmented Reality (AR) applications in primary, secondary and higher education in terms of student's motivation, learning gains, collaboration, interaction, learning attitudes and enjoyment, among others. However, very little has been done in terms of AR applications in VET as well as their impact on wide variety of student's special educational needs such as learning difficulties. This paper introduces a marker-based mobile AR application named Paint-cAR for supporting the learning process of repairing paint on a car in the context of a vocational education programme of car's maintenance. The application was developed using a methodology for developing mobile AR applications for educational purposes from a collaborative creation process (Co-Creation) and based on the Universal Design for Learning (UDL). A cross-sectional evaluation study was conducted to validate the Paint-cAR application in a real scenario. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.