EFL Students’ Engagement, Attitudes, and Task Participation in Augmented Reality Mobile Games and Pleasure Reading

Abstract

Using a mixed-method approach, this study examined student engagement, attitudes, and task participation in an augmented reality (AR) mobile game and pleasure reading among 78 undergraduates learning English as a foreign language (EFL) in South Korea. The location-based AR mobile game involved taking up the role of a private investigator, interviewing virtual characters while walking around campus, solving the given problem, and writing a case report using collected information. Pleasure reading involved choosing a book, reading it, and submitting a book review. After experiencing both the AR mobile game and pleasure reading, the students completed case reports, book reviews, reading logs, questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews for seven weeks. The results indicate that the AR game elicited significantly higher levels of behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement, as well as more positive attitudes (involvement, enjoyment, satisfaction, and willingness to continue), than pleasure reading. Furthermore, the challenging problem-solving task of the AR game demanded a considerable amount of intellectual and personal effort, which kept students cognitively and affectively engaged in the game, whereas the absence of such a challenging task in pleasure reading, other than understanding the English, ironically led students to engage less in reading books. Despite the significantly higher ratings on perceived usefulness of books in EFL learning, many students expressed strong psychological barriers to books, particularly when they had received few pleasurable reading experiences during childhood or adolescence. Furthermore, playing the AR game in groups enhanced student engagement and task participation significantly better than working individually; the advantages of working in groups were not evident in pleasure reading.