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ACCESS
CONTEMPORARY EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY
ISSN:
1309-517X (Online) 2021, 13(3), ep302, https://doi.org/10.30935/cedtech/
10865
Review
Article
Copyright © 2021 by the authors; licensee CEDTECH by Bastas. This article is published under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Augmented Reality in Education: An Overview of Twenty-Five Years of
Research
Cecilia Avila-Garzon
Fundación Universitaria Konrad Lorenz, Faculty of Mathematics and Engineering, Bogotá, Colombia
ORCID: 0000-0002-2384-0518
Jorge Bacca-Acosta
Fundación Universitaria Konrad Lorenz, Faculty of Mathematics and Engineering, Bogotá, Colombia
ORCID: 0000-0003-0381-6972
Kinshuk
University of North Texas, College of Information, Denton, USA
ORCID: 0000-0003-3923-9003
Joan Duarte
Fundación Universitaria Konrad Lorenz, Faculty of Mathematics and Engineering, Bogotá, Colombia
ORCID: 0000-0002-6285-6926
Juan Betancourt
Fundación Universitaria Konrad Lorenz, Faculty of Mathematics and Engineering, Bogotá, Colombia
ORCID: 0000-0003-2351-2693
Received: 8 Jul 2020 Accepted: 3 Feb 2021
Abstract
Research on augmented reality (AR) in education is gaining momentum worldwide. This field has been
actively growing over the past decades in terms of the research and development of new technologies.
Reviews in the field of AR in education consist of systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses (around
45), surveys (around 33), and only one bibliometric analysis. However, these reviews do not provide a
general synthesis of the research published in the field to depict its evolution over the years. This study
used the metadata of articles from a 25-year period (1995-2020) to conduct a bibliometric analysis. A total
of 3,475 studies were considered. In this study, we used tools such as the Scopus database, the
bibliometrix R package, and the VOSviewer analysis tool. The analysis of the literature is based on the
metadata, author, content, and citation information extracted from the dataset. In addition, we focus on
comparing literature published mainly in journals (articles, articles in press, and reviews) and those
published in other sources (conference papers, books, and book chapters). Practitioners could use the
results of this study to make decisions about the adoption of AR technologies in education.
Keywords: augmented reality, education, learning, bibliometric, trends
INTRODUCTION
In the field of educational technology, there is a wide variety of technologies and approaches being used
around the world to provide better support for teaching and learning processes. Among these approaches,
augmented reality (AR) is a technology that is gaining momentum around the globe. AR allows users to see
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the real world with digital information superimposed (Azuma, 1997). AR has been an active area of research
in the educational setting as a supporting technology for learning and teaching processes. AR has attracted
a lot of interest in the research community because it provides unique learning experiences that cannot be
achieved using other technologies or approaches. AR offers new forms of interactivity with content,
improved visualisations of scientific phenomena, and a reduced cognitive load. Many AR applications have
been developed for a wide variety of learning domains, such as science, engineering, and social sciences
(Cipresso et al., 2018; Garzón & Acevedo, 2019). Research on AR in education has demonstrated that AR has
a positive effect on students’ learning outcomes (Akçayır & Akçayır, 2017; Bernal et al., 2019; Cano et al.,
2019; Radu, 2014) and motivation (Arici et al., 2019; Bacca et al., 2018; Chiang et al., 2014; Ibañez et al.,
2020). In their meta-analysis of the effectiveness of AR in education, Tekedere and Göker (2016) found a
medium effect size (0.67) of AR on education. Likewise, Garzón et al. (2020) found a medium effect size (0.72)
of AR on students’ learning gains. According to the EDUCAUSE Horizon Report, Extended Reality (XR)
technologies (a concept that includes AR) seem to be ‘an effective way to augment traditional forms of
pedagogy’ (Brown et al., 2020, p. 30).
This study aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis in the field of AR in education. While there are many
systematic reviews and meta-analyses on AR in education and related topics, such as those conducted by
Akçayır and Akçayır (2017), and Garzón and Acevedo (2019) to name just a couple, the existing reviews are
very narrow in the sense that they only cover a small sample of articles published in the field and a narrow
timeframe. In other cases, some of the reviews have only considered journal articles to the exclusion of
conference papers and other documents. In other cases, systematic reviews might be biased due to
researchers’ personal views and interpretations or due to errors introduced from the content itself. These
constraints limit the conclusions that can be drawn from and the synthesis of research in the field, making
the decision-making process related to research in this field more difficult.
Bibliometric analyses differ from systematic reviews and meta-analyses in the sense that a bibliometric
analysis is more objective and reliable given that it entails a structured analysis of a very large body of
information based on statistical analysis. With a bibliometric analysis, many types of articles can be
considered and broadly analysed to draw accurate conclusions about the dynamics of research in the field.
A bibliometric analysis might benefit other researchers who are looking for trending topics in the field and
might also benefit policymakers (Aria & Cuccurullo, 2017) who make decisions on the creation of funding
opportunities and define plans for the implementation of technologies in education. Furthermore,
bibliometric analysis is key to mapping the state of the art of a particular field (Oliveira et al., 2019).
The analysis presented in this study addresses journal articles and other types of papers, such as conference
papers, books, and book chapters (a total of 3,475 studies were considered). The research questions that this
study aims to answer are as follows:
• RQ1: How has AR in education evolved in terms of annual scientific growth, the countries that contribute
the most, and the most relevant publication sources?
• RQ2: Who are the authors that have contributed the most to AR in education as measured by the number
of publications and citations per year?
• RQ3: What are the future research directions in AR in education?
This article’s main contribution is that it provides a general landscape of the research on AR in education,
showing how research in this field has evolved over the last 25 years and identifying the authors who have
contributed the most as well as trending topics. This information might be of special interest to researchers,
so that they can focus on the hottest topics in the field. Moreover, funding agencies can identify key areas
for grants and other funding opportunities.
RELATED WORK
In the literature on AR in education, there are other bibliometric analyses that are focused on particular
topics such as physical education (Calabuig-Moreno et al., 2020), the sustainability of AR in higher education
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(Abad-Segura et al., 2020), and research on AR in higher education (López et al., 2019). In the field of science
education, Arici et al. (2019) conducted a bibliometric analysis of 147 articles and a systematic review of 79
articles published between 2013 and 2018. Karakus et al. (2019) conducted a bibliometric analysis of 437
journal articles from the Web of Science (WOS), but conference papers were not considered. Bhagat (2019)
conducted a bibliometric analysis of 1,737 articles related to AR in simulation and training. There is also
another bibliometric analysis that considered AR from a general perspective, but it is not focused on
education (Cipresso et al., 2018). Collectively, these analyses reflect increasing interest in AR technology
around the world and the fact that related scientific production is also increasing.
Apart from conducting a bibliometric analysis, we also evaluated the state of the field by examining published
systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and surveys on the topic. This information is useful for researchers,
practitioners, and other stakeholders because we provide a summary of the current systematic reviews,
meta-analyses, and surveys in the field, so that stakeholders can refer to them when they need specific
information about a particular topic within the field. To do that, we searched the Scopus database using the
following string: ( TITLE-ABS-KEY ( “augmented reality” ) AND TITLE-ABS-KEY ( educat* ) AND TITLE-ABS-KEY
( “systematic literature review” ) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY ( “systematic review” ) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY ( “meta-
analysis” ) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY ( “survey” ) ) for three types of articles: systematic literature reviews, meta-
analyses, and surveys conducted in the field of AR in education. This search yielded 128 results. We analysed
the abstract of each result to identify whether the article belongs to any of the three types of articles of
interest and to the field of AR in education. After removing duplicates, we revised each article to identify its
type. As a result, we found 45 systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses and 33 surveys published in
the field of AR in education. We read the articles, and for each literature review and meta-analysis, we
extracted the following data: type of paper (journal or conference paper), title, year of publication, source of
publication, type of review (systematic or meta-analysis), main topic, number of studies considered, type(s)
of paper(s) reviewed in the article, and coverage (timeframe). Table A.1 in Appendix A presents the
information collected for the 44 systematic literature reviews, and Table A.2 in Appendix A presents the
information collected for the 33 surveys. It is important to note that Table A.2 in Appendix A does not provide
information about the number of studies considered, the types of papers reviewed in the survey, and
coverage (timeframe) because most of the surveys do not provide this information, as these surveys are not
systematic in nature.
Overall, the results show that there has been an increase in the number of systematic literature reviews in
the field of AR in education. For instance, to date, seven systematic literature reviews have been published
in 2019, and for 2018, we found that 14 systematic literature reviews were published. This is a positive result
because it reveals researchers’ interest in uncovering the benefits, advantages, and potentialities of this
technology in education. However, most of these literature reviews were conducted in a particular field, such
as science education, informal education, STEM education, and game-based learning, among others.
Consequently, the findings of these literature reviews provide a narrow overview of particular areas of
interest but do not provide a general overview of the current state of research on AR in education. The
primary benefit of taking education as a whole and see how AR has been used in this field is that a general
overview of the field might help to identify trends in research, emergent topics and topics that have not been
explored yet. A bibliometric analysis of AR in education as a whole field may uncover trends, strategic areas
for research, current research problems, the potential impact of certain research areas within the field and
the expansion of knowledge in that field (Oliveira et al., 2019) as well as the quality of research in that field
(Bornmann & Leydesdorff, 2014). These outputs are difficult to be obtained from systematic reviews.
Moreover, a bibliometric analysis is useful for evaluating the quality of research. Thus, there is a need to
identify the current state of global research on AR in education from a more general perspective in order to
identify areas that need further research, communities of researchers for collaboration, and trending topics.
In order to contribute to filling this gap, this paper reports on a bibliometric analysis of research in the field
of AR. Although a general overview of the field is too broad to cover, a bibliometric analysis is a suitable
technique to examine the current state of research in a broad field (Ellegaard & Wallin, 2015). The
bibliometric analysis presented in this article supplements the state of research reported in systematic
reviews that have focused on particular areas or domains of AR application. In this article, researchers,
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practitioners, and policymakers interested in this technology can gain a general overview of the current state
of research, trending topics, and future research directions; they can also refer to the systematic literature
reviews listed in Appendix A for more specific information about particular fields of application.
METHODOLOGY
Bibliometric Analysis
In the scientometrics field, bibliometric analysis is defined as statistical analysis for providing a quantitative
analysis of information from different written sources (books, articles, etc.) (Ellegaard & Wallin, 2015).
Bibliometric analysis has been adopted by many studies in the fields of education (Fellnhofer, 2019; Li et al.,
2019), economics (Wei, 2019), psychology (Zyoud et al., 2018), and biology (Yang & Wu, 2017), among others.
It can be used to obtain a general and detailed overview of the literature and map the state of the art in a
research field (Oliveira et al., 2019). Moreover, the development of tools for conducting bibliometric analyses
has been growing, and some research databases use bibliometric information for filtering results and
obtaining different types of visualisations. In this study, we used bibliometrix (Aria & Cuccurullo, 2017), which
is an R package for mapping analysis based on scientific literature, the filtering options from the Scopus
database, and the VOSviewer analysis tool. The options used from each tool are described as follows:
• Bibliometrix: analysis of contributions (years, authors, countries), author’s keywords analysis, trending
topics, sankey diagram and co-citation network.
• VoSViewer: analysis of keywords with a word cloud.
Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
Unlike the existing systematic reviews and other bibliometric analyses, which only considered one type of
scientific document (i.e. journal articles or conference papers), in this bibliometric analysis, we included
journal articles, conference papers, books, and book chapters about AR in education that are indexed in
Scopus. The inclusion of all of these types of documents allowed us to gather a more complete sample to
conduct the bibliometric analysis; we therefore have a more accurate landscape of research in the field.
Moreover, since these types of documents usually go through peer review before publication and indexing
in Scopus, they are more reliable for analysis. Thus, the inclusion criteria are as follows:
• Journal articles, reviews, conference papers, books, and book chapters that are indexed in Scopus, have
a clear focus on AR in education, and are written in English.
Regarding the exclusion criteria, we did not include the following types of documents:
• Book reviews, notes, erratum, editorials, letters to the editor, doctoral theses, master’s dissertations, and
other non-scientific documents.
Article Information Retrieval and Filtering
We used the Scopus database for this bibliometric analysis because it is one of the largest abstract and
citation databases and the quality of its indexed publications is high. Moreover, other bibliometric analysis
have focused in other databases such as Web of Science but very few focused on Scopus. After searching in
the Scopus database using the search query: ( TITLE-ABS-KEY ( “augmented reality” ) AND TITLE-ABS-KEY (
educ* ) ) AND PUBYEAR < 2020, a dataset consisting of 3,712 records was obtained. After applying inclusion
and exclusion criteria, a total of 3,475 papers were considered. The results obtained were exported into a
BibTeX file, including citation information (author(s), document title, year, source title, volume, issue, pages,
citation count, source, document type, and DOI), bibliographic information (affiliations, serial identifiers,
publisher, editor(s), correspondence address, and abbreviated source title), abstracts, keywords (author and
index keywords), and references. Duplicated entries in the BibTeX file were removed using BibTooL
(Charalampos, 2020). The BibTeX file was loaded into bibliometrix to analyse bibliometric information, such
as scientific production, sources, authors, content, thematic evolution, co-citation, and collaboration.
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Since most of the existing literature reviews have focused exclusively on journal articles, this study broadens
the scope by including and comparing other types of documents. The results obtained were then divided into
two groups, which resulted in two separate BibTeX files. Group A contains journal articles and reviews,
whereas Group B contains studies published as other types of documents, namely conference papers, books,
and book chapters. The documents were divided into these two groups because they are different in nature.
Journal articles contain a more elaborate analysis, discussion, and a stronger background compared to
conference papers, but their publication process is slow. Conference papers contain more recent research
and novel methods because their publication is faster. Table 1 shows the number of studies in each group
according to the type of document. According to the information in the table, the number of documents
published in Group B is larger than that in Group A. This means that most of the studies on AR in education
have been published as conference papers, books, and book chapters.
METADATA ANALYSIS
General Description of the Dataset
Table 2 shows the main information for the dataset. It provides an overview of the documents, keywords,
authors, citations, and collaborations in both groups. Although the number of documents in Group B is larger
than that in Group A, Group A has a higher average number of citations per document (14.47, compared with
Group B, which has an average of 4.07). This means that authors prefer citing mainly journal articles instead
of articles published in other sources.
Annual Scientific Production
The annual growth rate for Group A was 21.6%, which is quite similar to that of Group B (22.8%). Figure 1
depicts the number of papers published per year in each group. The period 2013-2019 had the highest
productivity in Group A, with more than 50 papers published per year. However, the highest productivity
period in Group B was 2010-2019, with more than 50 papers published per year. The most productive year
Table 1. Number of studies by group
Group A
Group B
Document type
Number of studies
Document type
Number of studies
Article
1,077
Conference paper
2,128
Reviews
96
Book chapter
162
Book
12
Total
1,173
Total
2,302
Table 2. Dataset information
Description
Results in Group A
Results in Group B
Documents
1,173
2,302
Sources (journals, books, etc.)
610
929
Keywords plus
3,981
8,921
Authors’ keywords
2,694
4,104
Period
1998–2020
1995–2020
Average citations per document
14.47
4.07
Authors
3,557
6,111
Author appearances
4,279
8,135
Authors of single-authored documents
133
168
Authors of multi-authored documents
3,424
5,943
Single-authored documents
140
202
Documents per author
0.33
0.377
Authors per document
3.03
2.65
Co-authors per document
3.65
3.53
Collaboration index
3.31
2.83
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was 2019 for both groups (A = 304 and B = 402), which demonstrates how research interest in this field has
grown in recent years. However, because the dataset information was retrieved at the end of January 2020,
the number of papers for 2020 is fewer in comparison to the last 10 years.
Scientific Production by Country
With regard to scientific production by country, 66 countries reported contributions in Group A and 83 in
Group B. Moreover, the most productive countries are similar for both Groups A and B. Figures 2 and 3 depict
the top 20 countries for Groups A and B, respectively. The United States (A = 514, B=558), Spain (A = 257, B
= 256), Taiwan (A = 202, B = 220), the United Kingdom (A = 107, B = 158), Germany (A = 103, B = 205), Australia
(A = 86, B = 158), Turkey (A = 82, B = 63), Malaysia (A = 80, B = 118), Japan (A = 79, B = 164), and China (A =
73, B = 177) are among the top 20 in both groups.
As part of examining scientific production by country, we also identified the countries that have been
conducting research in AR in education for some time and the countries that started to do research in the
field in more recent years. Figure 4 shows the countries that are more active in research in this field. The
countries coloured light purple or light blue, such as the United States, Spain, Taiwan, the United Kingdom,
and Germany, are those that contributed to the field before 2014 and earlier. The countries coloured green
or yellow, such as Mexico, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, and Colombia, began contributing to the field since
2017.
Figure 1. Annual scientific production
Figure 2. Scientific production by country – Group A
4
1
2
3
1
6
9
14
13
17
32
38
69
82
87
98
163
201
304
25
5
17
13
13
7
27
30
43
42
52
81
105
147
133
222
205
308
410
402
25
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
Group A Group B
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
1. USA
2. Spain
3. Taiwa n
4. UK
5. Germa ny
6. South Korea
7. Australia
8. Turkey
9. Malaysia
10. Japan
11. China
12. Italy
13. Canada
14. Netherlan ds
15. Greece
16. Fra nce
17. Mexico
18. Portugal
19. Indon esia
20. Braz il
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Figure 3. Scientific production by country – Group B
Figure 4. Contributions to the field by country and year
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The Most Relevant Sources
It is worth noting that several journals, books, and conferences have contributed to the publication of 2,903
papers, which have, in turn, contributed to making AR in education a trending novel topic. Figure 5 shows
the top 20 sources in each group. In Group A, most of the sources are focused on education, with Computers
and Education (33), Interactive Learning Environments (18), and Computers in Human Behavior (15) being the
most preferred publication sources for journal articles. Moreover, from that list, Virtual Reality (13) is a
specialised journal focused on virtual reality (VR), AR, and mixed reality technologies and their applications
in multidisciplinary contexts.
In Group B, the sources that published the most papers per the criteria of this study are Lecture Notes in
Computer Science (210), ACM International Conference Proceedings (92), and Procedia Computer Science
(69).
ANALYSIS OF AUTHORS
The Authors Who Have Contributed the Most Over Time
This section describes the most relevant authors’ productivity over time as measured by each author’s
number of publications and citations in journal articles as well as in conference papers, books, and book
chapters. This productivity information is presented for the top ten authors for each type of publication in
Figures 6 (Group A) and 7 (Group B). The larger the circle, the higher the number of publications, and the
darker the circle, the higher the number of citations per year. It is important to note that this analysis does
not consider the most cited article in the field. Instead, it considers authors’ productivity in terms of
publication quantity and the number of citations received. Thus, by analysing each author’s number of
citations per year, the most influential authors in AR in education are as follows. The most cited author in
Group A is Squire (last position in Figure 6) in 2007, with a total of 447 citations and an average of 31.9
citations per year. The most cited author in any one year for Group B is Kaufmann (14th position in Figure 7)
in 2003, with a total of 268 citations and an average of 17.8 citations per year.
Figure 5. Top 20 relevant sources
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Figures 8 and 9 show the number of authors that published AR studies over the examined years in the form
of journal articles, conference papers, and other documents, respectively. The results for Groups A and B
show that the number of researchers working on the topic of AR in education increased every year. This
result demonstrates the interest that this topic has created in the research community due to AR
technology’s impact in education and the technological advances that make AR more affordable for schools.
Given this landscape, it is possible that this trend will continue in the coming years and that this topic will be
more consolidated in the future as the number of researchers increases.
Figure 6. The top ten authors’ production over time – Group A
Figure 7. The top ten authors’ production over time – Group B
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Which Keywords Do the Most Relevant Authors Use in Which Sources?
Figure 10 presents a Sankey diagram depicting the most relevant authors in the field (on the left side of the
figure), along with the main keywords (in the middle of the figure) they used in their publications and the
most relevant sources (on the right side of the figure) in which these keywords appear for Group A (journal
articles). The width of each line between an author, a keyword, and a journal source indicates the strength
of the relationships between these aspects. The results show that the term ‘augmented reality’ is the most
common keyword that has been used in journal articles. Other relevant keywords are ‘virtual reality’,
‘interactive learning environments’, ‘mobile learning’, ‘education’, ‘ubiquitous learning’, ‘training’,
‘simulation’, and ‘laparoscopy’. These keywords often appear in the most relevant sources for this topic,
namely Computers and Education, Interactive Learning Environments, and Computers in Human Behavior.
This analysis might help other researchers identify the keywords that the most relevant authors have used
the most frequently to increase the visibility of their articles and identify which authors are working on
certain topics. The following keywords were used less often, but they might be related to emerging topics in
this field: ‘mobile augmented reality’, ‘game-based learning’, ‘gamification’, and ‘medical education’.
Figure 11 presents a Sankey diagram showing the keywords used by the most relevant authors in the most
relevant sources for Group B (books, book chapters, and conference proceedings). In this case, the results
are similar to those for journals. The most common term is ‘augmented reality’, followed by terms like ‘virtual
Figure 8. The number of authors that published AR studies over the years – Group A
Figure 9. The number of authors that published AR studies over the years – Group B
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reality’, ‘education’, ‘mobile learning’, ‘mobile devices’, ‘learning’, ‘engineering education’, and ‘mixed
reality’. These terms often appear in conference proceedings published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science,
ACM Proceedings Series, and Procedia Computer Science. Other terms that appear less frequently but might
be related to emerging topics in the field include ‘mobile augmented reality’, ‘children’, ‘cultural heritage’,
‘visualisation’, ‘simulation’, ‘serious games’, ‘gamification’, ‘game-based learning’, and ‘medical education’.
The Co-Citation Network
Figure 12 depicts the most cited studies in the field of AR in education. It is well known that Ronald Azuma
(Azuma, 1997; Azuma et al., 2001) is one of the most cited authors in the field of AR. The Louvain algorithm,
which allows for the extraction of communities from large networks and provides the most important
vertices within the network using a centrality measure, was used to delineate the co-citation network. In this
analysis, there are four clusters or communities. The top three most important authors and their centrality
measures in each cluster are described as follows. In the first cluster, (Azuma et al., 2001) (78.72), (Azuma,
Figure 10. A Sankey diagram showing authors, keywords, and sources for Group A (journal articles)
Figure 11. A Sankey diagram showing authors, keywords, and sources for Group B (books, book chapters,
and proceedings)
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1997) (46.12), and (Kaufmann, 2003) (16.19). In the second cluster, (Azuma, 1997) (131.47), (Milgram et al.,
1994) (58.48), and (Lee, 2012) (19.66). In the third cluster, (Dunleavy et al., 2009) (22.02), (Wu et al., 2013)
(10.39), and (Squire & Klopfer, 2007) (6.34). In the fourth cluster, (Feiner et al., 1993) (13.41), (Johnson et al.,
2010) (10.52), and (Huang et al., 2016) (6.65).
The green and red clusters have the highest concentration of the most cited studies during the period 1997-
2014, with Azuma and Dunleavy as the central nodes. In this co-citation network, Azuma (1997) and Dunleavy
et al. (2009) are the central nodes in the co-citation network of papers from journals (Group A) and their
studies can be considered seminal in the field of AR in education. The red cluster contains articles published
from 2014 and later that became key articles in research on AR in education. This result might suggest that a
new co-citation network is being created around these studies and that these studies might be defining new
trends in research on AR in education. In the red cluster, the Radu’s (2014), Wojciechowski and Cellary’s
(2013), and Sommerauer and Müller’s (2014) studies are among the most cited in the field of AR in education.
In Group B (conference papers, books, and book chapters), the landscape is similar (see Figure 13). Azuma’s
and Dunleavy’s articles are the most cited in the field. However, a new cluster appears (blue cluster), with
authors like Yilmaz (2016), and Huang et al. (2016).
CONTENT ANALYSIS
Word Cloud
Creating a word cloud is a strategy for analysing the frequency at which certain words appear in a text. Figure
14 shows the word cloud for each group according to each year’s relevant topics. The cloud includes 50 words
that appear frequently in abstracts across all papers. The most frequently used words and phrases were
‘learning’, ‘augmented reality’, ‘students’, ‘education’, and ‘technology’. The dark colours represent the
relevant topics in 2016, and the lightest colour represents relevant topics in 2016 onwards. Table 3 presents
some extracts from Figure 14 with the emerging and trending topics in the field from 2018 onwards.
Figure 12. The co-citation network by papers – Group A
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Figure 13. The co-citation network by papers – Group B
Figure 14. Analysis of words
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Table 3. Current emerging and trending topics from 2018 onwards
Topic
Studies
Special education
• Cakir & Korkmaz (2019) analyze the effectiveness of AR-
based environments considering special educational
needs.
• AR application for learning mathematics with a focus on
special education needs (Cascales-Martínez et al., 2017).
Industry 4.0:
• Construction of a smart factory using AR (Tzimas et al.,
2019).
Storytelling
• AR application for a literary museum (Fenu & Pittarello,
2018).
• Creative writing and storytelling (Ahn & Choi, 2016).
3D printing
• Mixed-reality and 3D printed models in surgery (Barber et
al., 2018).
• 3D printed and digital models (Saorin et al., 2017).
Mobile application
• Music awareness with AR (Rusiñol et al., 2018).
• Conceptual design in mobile applications using AR, an
application in geography (Wang et al., 2017).
• Contextual mobile learning and AR (Sungkur et al., 2016).
Higher education
• Teaching strategies based on AR in higher education (Ojino
& Mich, 2018; Pons, 2018; Saltan & Arslan, 2017)
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Analysis of Keywords
This analysis was conducted using authors’ keywords for each study published between 2016 and 2019 in
journal articles. To obtain the most frequently used keywords, we only considered keywords that appeared
more than five times in all of the journal articles, and we only reported the top five keywords in each year.
Figure 15 shows the top five keywords in order of frequency for every year from 2016 to 2019 in journal
articles. The results show that, in order of frequency, in 2018, the most relevant keywords in the articles were
‘virtual reality’, ‘education’, ‘mixed reality’, ‘educational technology’, and ‘higher education’. These keywords
show a strong relationship between AR, VR, and mixed reality as immersive learning technologies. Moreover,
the results point to increasing interest in research on the use VR in educational settings, as this technology is
becoming more affordable for some educational institutions. The keywords ‘education’ and ‘educational
technology’ are general terms that always appear in connection with AR. It is worth noting that the keyword
‘higher education’ was also among the most frequently used keywords in 2018.
For 2019, the top five keywords were ‘game-based learning’, ‘HoloLens’, ‘Industry 4.0’, ‘undergraduate
education’, and ‘surgery’. The most common keyword was ‘game-based learning’, which shows that a large
number of journal articles focused on how game-based learning strategies can be combined with AR learning
experiences. This combination often appears in the literature as AR game-based learning (ARGBL) (Pellas et
al., 2019; Tobar-Muñoz et al., 2017). In 2019, the keyword ‘HoloLens’ appeared again, showing that interest
in this device continues to grow in the research community. A possible interpretation of this result might be
that researchers are investigating the possibilities, benefits, and limitations of this device for the
development of AR learning experiences. Overall, there might be general interest in investigating the impact
of AR in education with different devices. In 2019, the keyword ‘undergraduate education’ also pointed to a
similar interest observed in 2018 at the higher education level. This result shows that a large number of
studies with AR have been conducted in higher education, as access to this population might be easier for
some researchers. Other keywords that became relevant in 2019 were ‘Industry 4.0’ and ‘surgery’. The
former is as a relevant keyword because AR is considered to be part of the new industrial revolution (Masood
& Egger, 2019), and researchers are currently investigating the possibilities of this technology in educational
Figure 15. The top five authors’ keywords for Group A by year from 2016 to 2019
Trend Topics
Log (frequency)
6
5
4
3
20162017 2018 2019
Year
2
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settings for new industries. Finally, the keyword ‘surgery’ refers to increasing interest in using AR in medical
education.
Figure 16 shows the top five keywords that appeared in book chapters and conference papers from 2016 to
2019. In 2018, the top five keywords were ‘gamification’, ‘augmented reality’, ‘educational technology’,
‘medical education’, and ‘mobile application’. The results show that gamification is important in research on
AR in education. The results of this analysis, combined with the analysis of journal articles, show that
gamification and game-based learning might be hot topics in research on AR in education. The keywords
‘augmented reality’ and ‘educational technology’ are common in the field. However, the keyword ‘medical
education’ confirms the fact that in journal articles, book chapters, and conference papers, there is increasing
interest in investigating the affordances of AR in medical education. Finally, the keyword ‘mobile application’
suggests that the popularity of mobile devices, their affordability, and technological advances in this field
have favoured the development of more mobile AR applications, and researchers are using mobile AR as a
medium to evaluate the effect of AR in education.
For 2019, the results presented in Figure 16 show that the top five keywords were ‘Unity’, ‘computational
thinking’, ‘virtual reality’, ‘Microsoft HoloLens’, and ‘Vuforia’. The keywords used within this period reflect
that research has focused on how some technologies, such as the Microsoft HoloLens and software platforms
such as Unity and Vuforia, might be used to develop AR learning experiences. In these results, the keyword
‘Unity’ refers to one of the most common software platforms currently used for the development of AR
learning experiences. This term often appears in the literature together with the ‘Vuforia’ software because
Vuforia is commonly used in conjunction with Unity for the development of AR-based applications. The
results also show that the term ‘virtual reality’ appeared again in 2019 as a relevant keyword, confirming
researchers’ interest in the use of VR in educational settings. Finally, the keyword ‘computational thinking’
might suggest that some research is being conducted to determine how immersive technologies can be used
to foster programming skills (Cepeda & Bacca, 2019).
Figure 16. The top five authors’ keywords for Group B by year from 2016 to 2019
Trend Topics
Log (frequency)
6
5
4
3
20162017 2018 2019
Year
2
7
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DISCUSSION
RQ1: How Has AR in Education Evolved in Terms of Annual Scientific Growth, The Countries That
Contribute the Most, and the Most Relevant Publication Sources?
The results of the bibliometric study show that the annual growth rate of publications in journals and
conferences on the topic of AR in education is approximately 21%. This result suggests that not only has there
been continuous interest in this topic, the number of related articles is increasing, thus confirming the
findings of Akçayır and Akçayır (2017), Herpich et al. (2019), and López et al. (2019) regarding the increase in
the number of publications in the field of AR in education. It is important to note that 2011 is the year in
which the number of publications in AR in education sky-rocketed and then rose steadily year after year. This
result might suggest that the field’s research communities are consolidating more and more research as the
field gains momentum and that we are close to the point at which this technology might mature and be
widely adopted in the educational sector.
As for the country scientific production, the results show that the USA, Spain and Taiwan are the three most
contributing countries for both types of publications: conference papers and journal articles. These three
countries are also the countries with a long tradition of research in the field with publications prior to 2014.
This result is consistent with the findings by López et al. (2019), and Karakus et al. (2019) in terms of the
country scientific production of research on AR in education. Moreover, we also identified that Mexico,
Malaysia, India, Indonesia and Colombia are some of the countries that are starting to contribute to the field
more recently.
The results show that the most relevant journals that have published research on AR in education are
Computers and Education, Interactive Learning Environments, and Computers in Human Behavior. This result
is similar to those Arici et al. (2019) reported in the field of AR in science education.
RQ2: Who Are the Authors That Have Contributed the Most to AR in Education as Measured by the
Number of Publications and Citations per Year?
Although Azuma is one of the most cited authors in the field, among the top ten authors that have
contributed the most, Hwang is the most cited in journal articles, and Billinghurst is the most cited in
conference papers and book chapters. It is important to note that this result considers the top ten most cited
authors with respect to the number of publications per year and the number of citations of those
publications.
The co-citation network that was delineated based on this bibliometric analysis provides an overview of
research on AR in education that has been published in journal articles as well as in conference papers and
book chapters. In the co-citation network, Azuma and Dunleavy are among the most cited authors in the
field. This result is in line with the findings of Cipresso et al. (2018), who noted that Azuma’s articles are the
most cited in the field of AR in education. These results are also in line with the co-citation network that was
created based on the results of Arici et al.’s (2019) bibliometric analysis in the field of science education.
Moreover, the clusters in this study’s co-citation network (see Figures 12 and 13) show the most cited articles
and authors in the field of AR in education over the past 25 years.
By analysing the co-citation clusters for journal articles (Group A - see Figure 12), it was found that Azuma
and Dunleavy authored the most-cited studies in the field. However, after 2014, a new group of journal
articles, including studies by Radu (2014), Wojciechowski and Cellary (2013), and Sommerauer and Müller
(2014), created a new cluster of co-citations, possibly defining new trends in research on AR in education.
These results might suggest that Azuma’s and Dunleavy’s articles marked the first generation of research on
AR in education, but from 2014 onwards, a second generation was born. A possible interpretation of this
result might be that the more recent articles cited the most recent studies, and for that reason, a new co-
citation cluster was created after 2014. This finding is also consistent with that of López et al. (2019), who
found that the period from 2015 to the present has been the most productive period for research on AR in
higher education.
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The co-citation network for papers in Group B (conference papers, books, and book chapters) yielded results
that are similar to those obtained for journal articles. However, one more cluster appears in the co-citation
network: the blue cluster. In this cluster, the central nodes are Yilmaz’s (2016), and Huang et al.’s (2016)
studies. This cluster of articles might represent a new generation of research on AR in education.
RQ3: What Are the Future Research Directions in AR in Education?
The trending topics in AR in education that were identified as part of this bibliometric analysis are as follows:
• The use of AR in learning environments populated by students with special educational needs
• Using AR as part of the Industry 4.0 movement
• The support that AR provides for educational activities that involve storytelling
• The combination of 3D printing and mixed reality for learning purposes
• Investigating the use of mobile devices for deploying AR learning experiences
• Increasing interest in exploring the effect of AR in higher education courses
From the analysis of the authors’ keywords, we identified the most frequent keywords in the articles. These
keywords might provide insights into topics in AR in education due to their prevalence in journals, book
chapters, and conference papers. The results show that gamification and game-based learning are keywords
that frequently appear in articles from journals, book chapters, and conference papers. This result might
suggest increasing interest in applying gamification strategies and the theory of game-based learning to the
development of AR learning experiences. This result confirms previous findings in systematic literature
reviews in the field of AR game-based learning (Koutromanos et al., 2015; Laine, 2018; Li et al., 2017; Pellas
et al., 2019) and reinforces the findings of Karakus et al.’s (2019) bibliometric analysis. Other keywords that
appeared frequently were ‘medical education’ and ‘surgery’. This result suggests increasing interest in the
use of AR for medical education because of the new opportunities that AR is creating for the visualisation
and simulation of medical procedures. This result is in line with previous findings in systematic literature
reviews in the field of AR in medical education (Barsom et al., 2016; Joda et al., 2019; McCarthy & Uppot,
2019; Sen et al., 2018).
The results also show that there is increasing interest in investigating the use of AR in higher education
settings, which has been previously noted by López et al. (2019). This result also confirms previous findings
by Garzón et al. (2019), who noted that higher education and primary education are two of the educational
levels for which more AR research has been conducted.
One of the topics that did not appear among the trending topics is the development of authoring tools that
enable teachers to create content for AR learning experiences or modify existing content to add new
functionalities. This issue is often reported in the literature (Fidan & Tuncel, 2019). Another topic that is
starting to appear as a remarkable concern is that public schools should provide the technologies needed to
deploy AR learning experiences, so that all students can have the same experience, given that there are some
students that might not have access to some technologies (Fidan & Tuncel, 2019).
CONCLUSION
This paper reports the results of a bibliometric analysis of 25 years (1995-2020) of research on AR in
education. From 3,475 papers, we identified annual scientific growth, the authors that contributed the most,
the outcomes of the co-citation analysis, scientific production over time, and trending topics. By analysing
these results, we observed a wide variety of aspects that influence growth and evolution in this field.
The number of publications on AR in education is increasing, and the field is gaining momentum. Regarding
countries’ scientific production, the United States, Spain, and Taiwan are the three leading countries in the
publication of research on AR in education. In terms of journal sources, Computers and Education, Interactive
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Learning Environments, and Computers in Human Behavior are among the most important journals for
publishing research on AR in education. Most conference papers are published in the lecture notes in
Computer Science because some of the conferences publish their proceedings under this series.
Although Azuma is one of the most cited authors in the field, when we analysed the contributions per year
and the number of citations, Hwang was found to be both the most prolific and the most cited author among
the top ten authors in the field. For conference papers, books, and book chapters, Billinghurst is the most
prolific and the most cited author among the top ten contributors. The co-citation network shows that Azuma
and Dunleavy authored the most-cited studies in the field of AR in education. However, from 2014 onwards,
a new cluster of highly-cited journal articles appeared as a new generation of research in the field of AR in
education. The case for conference papers, books, and book chapters is similar, but the new cluster appeared
around 2016.
The current emerging and trending research topics in AR in education are special educational needs, Industry
4.0, storytelling, 3D printing, mobile applications, and higher education. These results were confirmed by the
results of the analysis of authors’ keywords, from which the concepts of ‘gamification’ and ‘game-based
learning’ were also identified as important in research on AR in education. There is also increasing interest in
designing AR learning experiences for higher education. The keywords also show that some recent studies
have focused on investigating how AR can be used in medical education.
Author contributions: All authors were involved in concept, design, collection of data, interpretation, writing, and critically
revising the article. All authors approve final version of the article.
Funding: The authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.
Declaration of interest: Authors declare no competing interest.
Data availability: Data generated or analysed during this study are available from the authors on request.
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Avila-Garzon et al. / Contemporary Educational Technology, 2021, 13(3), ep302
25 / 29
APPENDIX A
Systematic Reviews and Surveys on AR in education
Table A1. Systematic literature reviews and meta-analysis conducted in AR in education
Type
of paper: J=journal article, C=conference, BC=book chapter; Type of review: R=systematic literature review, MA=meta-analysis
#
Type
of
paper
Title
Year of
publication
Source of publication
Type
of
review
Main topic
Number
of
studies
Type of
papers
reviewed
Coverage
1
J
Augmented reality in STEM
education: a systematic review
2020
Interactive Learning
Environments
R
Impact of AR
on STEM
education
42
Journal
articles
Until
2019
2
J
Perspectives on how to evaluate
augmented reality technology tools
for education: a systematic review
2019
Journal of the Brazilian
Computer Society
R
Impact of AR in
the learning
process
45
Journal and
Conference
papers
2009-
2017
3
J
Meta-analysis of the impact of
Augmented Reality on students’
learning gains
2019
Educational Research
Review
MA
Impact of AR
on students’
learning gains
64
Journal
Articles
2010-
2018
4
J
Augmented and virtual reality in
dental medicine: A systematic
review
2019
Computers in Biology
and Medicine
R
AR in dental
medicine
16
Journal and
Conference
papers
Until
2018
5
C
Augmented Reality Experiences in
Informal Education
2019
2018 IEEE International
Conference on Teaching,
Assessment, and
Learning for Engineering
(TALE)
R
AR in informal
education
18
Journal
Articles
2010-
2017
6
J
Systematic review and meta-analysis
of augmented reality in educational
settings
2019
IEEE Virtual Reality
MA
AR in education
61
Journal
Articles
2012-
2018
7
J
Research trends in the use of
augmented reality in science
education: Content and bibliometric
mapping analysis
2019
Computers & Education
R
AR in science
learning
62
Journal
articles
2013-
2018
8
J
How Mobile Augmented Reality is
Applied in Education? A Systematic
Review
2019
Creative Education
R
AR in education
57
Journal and
conference
papers
2011-
1018
9
J
The Effect of Augmented Reality
Applications in the Learning Process:
A Meta-Analysis Study
2018
Eurasian Journal of
Educational Research
MA
AR in education
16
Journal
articles
2007-
2017
10
J
A Systematic Review of 10 Years of
Augmented Reality Usability Studies:
2005 to 2014
2018
Frontiers in Robotics and
AI
R
User studies
with AR
291
Journal and
Conference
papers
2005-
2014
11
J
Augmented reality for STEM learning
A Systematic Review
2018
Computers & Education
R
AR in STEM
education
28
Journal
articles
2010-
2017
12
J
Applications of Augmented Reality in
Informal Science Learning Sites: a
Review
2018
Journal of Science
Education and
Technologies
R
AR in informal
science
education
17
-
-
13
J
Augmenting the learning experience
in Primary and Secondary school
education: A systematic review of
recent trends in augmented reality
game-based learning
2018
Virtual Reality
R
AR game-based
learning
(ARGBL)
21
Journal
articles
2012-
2017
14
J
Trends in Educational Augmented
Reality Studies: A Systematic Review
2018
Malaysian Online Journal
of Educational
Technology
R
AR in education
105
Journal
articles
2011-
2016
15
J
Using sensors and augmented reality
to train apprentices using recorded
expert performance: A systematic
literature review
2018
Educational Research
Review
R
AR and sensors
in training
78
Journal and
Conference
papers
2014-
2016
16
J
The state of immersive technology
research: A literature analysis
2018
Computers in Human
Behavior
R
AR as
immersive
technology
54
Journal
papers
2010-
2017
17
J
Mobile Educational Augmented
Reality Games: A Systematic
Literature Review and Two Case
Studies
2018
Computers
R
Educational
mobile AR
games
44
-
2012-
2017
Avila-Garzon et al. / Contemporary Educational Technology, 2021, 13(3), ep302
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#
Type
of
paper
Title
Year of
publication
Source of publication
Type
of
review
Main topic
Number
of
studies
Type of
papers
reviewed
Coverage
18
J
A Systematic Review of Learning
through Mobile Augmented Reality
2018
International Journal of
Interactive Mobile
Technologies
R
AR in education
77
Journal and
Conference
papers
2000-
2017
19
C
Toward smart learning
environments: Affordances and
design architecture of augmented
reality (AR) applications in medical
education
2018
Proceedings of First
International Conference
on Smart System,
Innovations and
Computing
R
AR in medical
education
25
Journals
-
20
C
Augmented Reality For Teaching And
Learning – A Literature Review On
Theoretical And Empirical
Foundations
2018
Research Papers
R
Theoretical and
Empirical
foundations of
AR in education
36
Journal and
Conference
papers
-
21
J
Augmented Reality applications in
education to improve teaching –
learning processes: a systematic
review
2018
Espacios
R
AR in education
50
Journal and
Conference
papers
2013-
2018
22
J
Exploring mobile mixed reality in
healthcare higher education: A
systematic review
2018
Research in Learning
Technology
R
MR in
Healthcare
higher
education
18
Journal
articles
All years
until
2018
23
J
Advantages and challenges
associated with augmented reality
for education: A systematic review
of the literature
2017
Educational Research
Review
R
AR in education
68
Journal
Until
2015
24
C
Augmented reality applications for
education: Five directions for future
research
2017
Lecture Notes in
Computer Science
(International
Conference on
Augmented Reality,
Virtual Reality and
Computer Graphics)
R
AR in Education
50
articles
Journal
articles and
Conference
papers
2011-
2017
25
C
Augmented Reality Games for
Learning: A Literature Review
2017
International Conference
on Distributed, Ambient,
and Pervasive
Interactions
R
AR games for
learning
26
Journal and
Conference
papers
-
26
C
A systematic review of Augmented
Reality game-based applications in
primary education
2017
11th European
Conference on Games
Based Learning
R
AR game-based
learning
(ARGBL)
17
Journal
articles
2012-
2017
27
J
Key themes in mobile learning:
Prospects for learner-generated
learning through AR and VR
2017
Australasian Journal of
Educational Technology
R
Learner-
generated
learning in AR
and VR
328
Journal and
Conference
papers
2010-
2016
28
J
A comprehensive survey of
augmented reality assembly
research
2016
Advances in
Manufacturing
R
AR in assembly
processes
91
-
2005-
2015
29
BC
A review of using Augmented Reality
in Education from 2011 to 2016
2016
Innovations in Smart
Learning
R
AR in education
55
articles
Journal
articles
2011-
2016
30
J
Examining the Effectiveness of
Augmented Reality Applications in
Education: A Meta-Analysis
2016
International Journal of
Environmental & Science
Education
R
AR in education
17
Journal
articles
2005-
2015
31
J
The Use of Augmented Reality in
Formal Education: A Scoping Review
2016
Eurasia Journal of
Mathematics, Science &
Technology Education
R
AR in formal
education
23
-
2012-
2016
32
J
Evaluation of quality and
personalisation of VR/AR/MR
learning systems
2016
Behavior & Information
Technology
R
Evaluation of
quality and
personalization
in MR
33
Journal and
Conference
papers
2014-
2016
33
J
Systematic review on the
effectiveness of augmented reality
applications in medical training
2016
Surgical Endoscopy
R
AR in medical
training
27
Journal
articles
Until
2015
34
J
A Review of Research on Augmented
Reality in Education: Advantages
and
Applications
2015
International Education
Studies
R
AR in education
9
Journal and
Conference
papers
Until
2014
Avila-Garzon et al. / Contemporary Educational Technology, 2021, 13(3), ep302
27 / 29
#
Type
of
paper
Title
Year of
publication
Source of publication
Type
of
review
Main topic
Number
of
studies
Type of
papers
reviewed
Coverage
35
C
Benefits of Augmented Reality in
Educational Environments – A
Systematic Literature Review
2015
12th International
Conference on
Wirtschaftsinformatik
R
AR in education
25
Journal and
Conference
papers
-
36
J
A Systematic Literature Review of
Factors Influencing Acceptance on
Mixed Reality Technology
2015
ARPN Journal of
Engineering and Applied
Sciences
R
Acceptance of
Mixed reality
26
Journals and
Conference
papers
2005-
2015
37
C
Augmented Reality In E-Learning
Review of Prototype Designs For
Usability Evaluation
2015
2015 International
Conference on
Communication,
Information &
Computing Technology
(ICCICT)
MA
Educational
impact of AR
4
Journal and
Conference
papers
-
38
J
The use of augmented reality games
in education: a review of the
literature
2015
Educational Media
International
R
AR games in
education
7
Journal
Articles
2000-
2014
39
C
Collaborative Augmented Reality in
Education: A Review
2014
2014 International
Conference on Teaching
and Learning in
Computing and
Engineering (LaTiCE)
R
Collaborative
AR
in education
10
Journal and
Conference
papers
2000-
2013
40
J
Augmented reality in healthcare
education: an integrative review
2014
PeerJ
R
AR in
healthcare
education
25
Journal and
Conference
papers
Until
2012
41
J
Review of Augmented Paper
Systems in Education: An
Orchestration Perspective
2014
Journal of Educational
Technology and Scoiety
R
Augmented
Paper systems
40
Journal and
Conference
papers
-
42
J
Augmented Reality Learning
Experiences: Survey of Prototype
Design and Evaluation
2014
IEEE Transactions on
Learning Technologies
R, MA
AR in education
87 for
review -
7 for
meta-
analysis
Journal and
Conference
papers
Until
2012
43
J
2014
Educational Technology
& Society
R
AR in education
32
Journal
articles
2003-
2013
44
J
Augmented Reality in Education: a
meta-review and cross media
analysis
2014
Personal and Ubiquitous
Computing
R
AR in education
26
Journal and
Conference