Authors

Kevin K. Yue^1,3 (kkmyue@hkbu.edu.hk), Lisa Y. Law² (lisalaw@hkbu.edu.hk), Hiu Ling Chan³ (lingchan@hkbu.edu.hk), Jade B. Chan³ (jadechan@hkbu.edu.hk), Elaine Y. Wong³ (elainew@hkbu.edu.hk), Theresa F. Kwong² (theresa@hkbu.edu.hk), Eva Y. Wong² (evawong@hkbu.edu.hk)

1. School of Chinese Medicine, Hong Kong Baptist University
2. Centre for Holistic Teaching and Learning, Hong Kong Baptist University
3. Office of Student Affairs, Hong Kong Baptist University

Abstract

University education in the 21st century is not only striving for academic development and measurable outcomes in students but also their whole-person development. The Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) has taken an innovative lead in the region to enhance undergraduate students’ whole-person education via residential learning. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of adopting Augmented Reality (AR) mobile learning (mLearning) together with the rising importance of context-/location-aware technologies in an Induction Training Programme for a group of newly appointed hall tutors to sharpen their ethical thinking in terms of performing their roles and responsibilities as future student leaders. This study was part of a government-funded project which focused on academic integrity and ethics through AR mLearning trails – Trails of Integrity and Ethics (TIEs).  Participants were arranged to conduct an AR mLearning trail (AR-Hall Trail) within their halls of residence using their mobile devices. The context of this AR-Hall Trail was designed to create a scenario-driven story-line with student acceptable elements like videos, sound effects, related pictures in a given situation as well as the use of Hong Kong Cantonese dialect. Interpretations made from both qualitative and quantitative results had illustrated that through such an innovative AR-Hall Trail, majority of participants managed to develop deeper ethical thinking, paying more attention on their role as ‘Role Models’ to their peer residents, yet without losing sight on their responsibilities such as ‘Time Management’ and resolving ‘Conflicts’. Despite the learning outcomes of conducting this study seem promising, further improvements such as provision of stable Wi-Fi to accommodate a larger number of participants, thematic real-life scenarios, longer story-lines in the mobile App design were also covered in this chapter. This study had therefore demonstrated that the impact of conducting a student-centered AR-Hall Trail not only empowered participants a better and deeper understanding of ethical reasoning with integrity but its effect was shown to be sustainable.

Keywords

Augmented Reality, mLearning trail, Context-/location-aware technologies, Residential Education

Acknowledgement

This project is funded by a Teaching and Learning Grant titled ‘Reinforcing the Importance of Academic Integrity and Ethics in Students through Blended Learning–a Deployment of Augmented Reality Applications’ from the University Grants Committee of Hong Kong.