Augmented Reality and Situated Learning in Basic Education: Evaluation of an Immersive Experience on a Recreational Trail

This study evaluated the educational impact of an augmented reality (AR) experience implemented on a recreational and interpretive trail designed to foster university engagement on the La Paz campus of the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur (UABCS), targeted at basic-education children. Although the recreational trail received 500 school visits during its operation, most initiatives of this kind lack empirical evaluation of their impact. The study used a mixed, descriptive, pre-experimental design, with a pre-test and post-test administered to a convenience subsample of 30 participants (M age = 7.47 years), complemented by a retrospective documentary and photographic analysis of the visits. The results showed a statistically significant, large-magnitude learning improvement between the pre-test and post-test (from 7.13 to 9.93 out of 10; Wilcoxon test, r = 0.70), as well as high levels of motivation (M = 4.60/5), satisfaction (M = 4.54/5), and immersion (M = 4.40/5). The usability of the technology scored the lowest among the four evaluated indices (M = 4.19/5), particularly among the youngest participants, suggesting that the main barrier to the experience was technological rather than cognitive. A negative correlation was also found between motivation and learning gains, which should be interpreted with caution due to the ceiling effect observed in the post-test, as well as strong positive correlations between immersion-motivation and usability-satisfaction. These findings provide novel empirical evidence regarding the pedagogical value of AR in university science outreach contexts outside the traditional classroom and offer an empirical basis for improving and scaling up this type of intervention.