Tangibility is Overrated - Comparing Learning Experiences of Physical Setups and their Virtual Equivalent in Augmented Reality.

Augmented Reality (AR) is gaining increasing importance in science, education, and entertainment. A fundamental characteristic of AR is blending the virtual and physical world into a coherent environment. In this paper, we examine the effect of substituting the physical components of lab experiments with tangible replicas and virtual representations. We conducted a user study with thirty participants who carried out the experiment in three different abstraction levels (original lab equipment, non-functional tangible props, virtual representation). We compared the users’ performance regarding setup time, experienced workload, quality of measurements, and concept comprehension of the learning task. We found no effect on comprehension but significant differences in setup time and quality of measures. The results indicate that substitution reduces the experiment setup duration without affecting knowledge transfer. These results help to shape future AR learning environments, and we offer insights for creating complex mixed reality learning materials.