Towards Understanding Group Collaboration Patterns Around Mobile Augmented-Reality Interfaces for Geospatial Science Data Visualizations

Research has shown benefits of providing collaborative learning opportunities in undergraduate Earth Science classrooms as it enables student groups to visualize, discuss, and make meaning of the complex Earth System Science. Augmented Reality (AR) applications have been increasingly used to present geodata visualizations in their innate three-dimensional format to support Earth Science learning. However, little is known about how student groups naturally collaborate around AR applications to interpret and make sense of geodata visualizations. To bridge this gap, we studied how groups of pre-service Earth Science teachers collaboratively explored a mobile AR application showcasing Earth's ocean system. In our findings of groups' natural collaboration behaviors, we found that most groups tended to work closely where both group members talked about content and interacted with the AR app together. Our findings will inform the design of future mobile-AR geospatial data visualization interfaces to effectively support collaborative learning in classrooms.