A systematic analysis of research trends in augmented reality within higher education

This study set out to examine trends in research on Augmented Reality (AR) in Higher Education Institutions (HEI). A total of 117 articles were retrieved from the Scopus and ScienceDirect databases. The number of publications on AR in HE is steadily increasing, from early prototypes (2011–2014, 6 studies), to discipline-specific pilots (2015–2018, 17 studies), to institutional engagement (2019–2020, 21 studies), through pandemic-driven acceleration (2021–2022, 24 studies), followed by disciplinary diversification and methodological maturity (2023–2024, 32 studies), and culminating in large-scale adoption (2025, 17 studies). The most commonly used hardware resources for creating AR-based learning environments include smartphones (55%), followed by computers (23%), tablets (15%), and other devices (7%). An analysis of the educational fields reveals that AR is often tested for its general educational potential rather than within a single field (33%). However, Engineering (15%), Education (12%) and Medicine/Health Sciences (12%) dominate the publication landscape, collectively accounting for over a third of the total output. In terms of research approaches, 58% (n = 63) employed quantitative methods, 35% (n = 38) of the studies presented conceptual modelling research, 4% (n = 4) adopted qualitative methods, and the remaining 11% (n = 12) used a mixed-methods approach.