Collaborative and individual learning in an augmented reality escape room game

Augmented Reality technology provides immersive learning environments that support an intensive engagement of learners with instructional material. However, the role of immersion for students’ learning is still under discussion as previous studies provide contradictory results. On the one hand, immersion can be related to higher learning outcomes and emotional engagement. On the other hand, immersion can be counterproductive to learning as it can distract and overwhelm learners. Several strategies to guide students’ learning in highly immersive learning environments have been investigated in recent years, such as generative learning activities (e.g., summarizing). In this research, we argue that collaboration might serve as a helpful strategy to support students learning with immersive technologies like AR. In a randomized controlled field trial, students either played an AR escape room game on learning about fake news individually (n = 28) or collaboratively (n = 32). In the collaborative condition learners outperformed the individual learners significantly on a post knowledge test, but no differences were found on a transfer test. Collaborative learners reported significantly lower degrees of engrossment and total immersion, which are the higher levels of immersion used in this study. A linear regression model showed that the highest level of immersion (“total immersion”) negatively predicted knowledge acquisition. Results are discussed considering the immersion principle in multimedia learning.