A systematic literature review on augmented reality in mathematics education

A systematic literature review on augmented reality


INTRODUCTION
The use of technological tools in various fields has grown rapidly over the last decades.Augmented reality (AR) has become a technological enabler for education, design, navigation, and medicine (Cai et al., 2019).Azuma (1997) describes AR in which three-dimensional virtual objects are integrated into the real environment in real-time.Also, AR is a crucial technology that provides remarkable tools to enhance the experience of interacting with reality (Garzón & Acevedo, 2019).The placement of virtual information within the users' immediate environment through AR improves their perception of and interaction with the actual world (Lai & Cheong, 2022).
AR is a kind of mixed reality technology involving virtual objects implemented or "augmented" in the real life.AR provides learners with new experiences by allowing them to "see" digital learning content overlaid on their existing environment.By providing personalized learning opportunities with interaction options, ARbased learning tools enable students to actively engage in the learning process and build their knowledge structures (Ibili et al., 2020).
AR is a way to see the world that is like reality, but with extra information.It can be used to see things in the physical world, or a virtual environment.The relationship between the real and virtual world has described by a figure called the reality-virtuality-mediality continuum (Milgram et al., 1994).After 27 years, this figure was revised by Skarbez et al. (2021), as shown in Figure 1.
They focused on multiple senses of users (i.e., hearing, sight, touch, taste, and smell,) in the revised model.They criticized that the virtual environment endpoint in the Milgram et al.'s (1994) continuum figure was ill-

Review Article
defined.They added a matrix-like virtual environment for explaining sensory agreement as in the popular movie series Matrix.In the Matrix movies, direct brain stimulation is used to achieve sensory agreement.
Besides, by developing and spreading new mobile devices and technologies AR technology became a unique and more interactive experience.Also, AR process differs according to platforms, it contains user interaction with the device and real object's tracking processing phases.There are three main types of AR tracking technology vision-based tracking, sensor-based tracking, and hybrid tracking (Rabbi & Ullah, 2013).
As a summary of these models, it is necessary to show that AR process model includes basic elements such as user-device-real object and their interaction between them.For describing user interaction with devices and real object-virtual object relation, we present a new model that contains processing and tracking phases (Figure 2).

Augmented Reality in Mathematics Education
Traditionally, mathematics has been taught using paper, pencils, and chalkboards or whiteboards.However, while making progress with technology, the adoption of more advanced technology in mathematics instruction has stalled, even if educational technology has made significant advancements.Even while new technologies might not be able to solve students' problems with arithmetic problem-solving techniques, inaction will continue to halt improvements in mathematics instruction.In order to improve conceptual understanding, scaffold learning, and create chances for dialogue regarding the solution of mathematical problems used in real-life applications, educators are pushed to design novel teaching and learning methodologies (Lai & Cheong, 2022).
In mathematics education, AR has a big potential and opportunities for students to learn and interact with three-dimensional models in the real world.The usage of AR in mathematics education has increased especially in geometry and other complex concepts (Liu et al., 2019;Thamrongrat & Law, 2019).In these studies, it is reported that the use of AR has a positive effect on students' learning performance and attitude toward mathematics, especially in classes that focus on solid geometry and more abstract geometric concepts.In addition, informal settings were more effective than formal settings for the intervention.
Besides, Garzón and Acevedo (2019) investigated 64 quantitative research papers for a meta-analysis to analyze the impact of AR on students' learning gains.The researchers found that learning gains were higher when AR resources were used in teaching mathematics Furthermore, learning gains and motivation were reported as the most important benefits of AR in education.Using AR technology increases the motivation of participants not only in mathematics but also in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics).According to the researchers' observations, it occurs particularly when students' curiosity is sparked and they are challenged to create their own projects, thus making learning more enjoyable for both students (Jesionkowska et al., 2020).

Rationale for This Review
A few meta-analyses and literature reviews have been made to present AR implementation in different fields such as medicine, physics, chemistry, mathematics, geography, biology, astronomy, and history (Ibáñez & Delgado-Kloos, 2018;Saidin et al., 2015;Silva et al., 2019).However, there is a lack of systematic literature review, especially about AR usage in mathematics education.There are only a few articles that systematically reviewed the related studies on the use of AR in mathematics instruction.This research fills the gap in mathematics education research.Especially for a more inclusive literature review this research contains 10 international research databases and 42 articles (Appendix A).This research has more databases and articles than previous ones.One of the previous reviews included 19 articles indexed in only Scopus database (Ahmad & Junaini, 2020).In another review, Jabar et al. (2022) reviewed five databases and a total of 20 articles.Similarly, Korkmaz and Morali (2022) investigated 20 research articles.
In this study, we systematically reviewed the existing literature in the field of AR and mathematics education.We also attempted to provide answers to the following research questions and analyzed them over time, with a focus on AR and mathematics education.This was done in order to view cumulative progress over the previous few decades.

METHOD Eligibility Criteria
For examining the literature in the field of AR and mathematics education, We specified the studies, treatments, outcomes, and participants that were accepted for inclusion in the review and stated that research was excluded if it examined outcomes unrelated to students or academic instruction.

Information Sources
In the current study, we used the latest version of preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PRISMA2020) guidelines (Page et al., 2021).

Selection of Databases
The following ten databases were selected because of their significant impact on mathematics education and scientific indexing standards: AR is not only an educational topic but also a technological issue.For this reason, besides Scopus (184 articles) and WoS (273 articles) other databases were selected such as IEEEXplore Digital Library (219 articles).These high-quality scientific databases were investigated in order to establish an inclusive and wide review.Additionally, they contain a significant amount of research in the area of educational research, particularly in the field of mathematics education.

Search Strategy
The literature search was conducted on July 27, 2022.We found the related papers in the field of mathematics education research using search strings (Musarat et al., 2021) with asterisks and Boolean operators, and that contained those two elements.An excerpt of the search strategy for search terms is shown in Table 1.

Selection Process
For investigating the current literature in the field of AR and mathematics education, we used priority screening methods in this review.Non-English language articles were excluded.All studies done at all mathematics education levels were included in our search, and the research's publication years were not a restriction.Overall, we utilized five inclusion criteria and five exclusion criteria, as shown in Table 2, to determine which publications were appropriate for the evaluation.

Data Collection Process
The article selection process was implemented in three main phases: identification, screening, and inclusion (Page et al., 2021).Using the search terms from Table 1, 10 databases were searched for literature during the identification phase, and 1,031 records were found.For organizing references and deleting duplicate information, utilize bibliographic software.We utilized the "refine" or "limit to" functionalities of the  electronic databases to eliminate publications by choosing exclusion criteria after eliminating duplicate information.We independently reviewed the remaining 758 possibly related studies before we manually filtered them.
At the end of the screening phase, we included 42 studies in the systematic review.Figure 2 shows the flow chart for the entire manuscript selection process.In this review, for examining the existing literature in the field of AR and mathematics education.We employed a standardized, pilot-tested form.Data was also retrieved by independent reviewers, who then had it verified by another reviewer

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
In this section, the results and thus also the research questions mentioned are answered, which relate to the separate subsections.

Distribution of the Studies in Terms of Year of Publication and Authors' Countries
The findings of geographic distribution showed the contributions of researchers from various nations to the study of AR in mathematics education.Only the findings from the independent analysis based on each author's national affiliations were presented.
Figure 3 shows the distribution of the reviewed articles' authors according to the countries that were indicated in the article.The authors from the USA (n=7), Spain (n=6), Taiwan (n=4), Turkey (n=4), and China (n=3) produced the highest number of articles.Meanwhile, authors from Germany, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Australia, India, Malaysia, and Portugal published two articles.The remaining authors from 13 countries only published one article each.means of the increase in popularity of smart devices, it becomes easy to access AR tools such as smartphones and glasses.

Sample Groups and Sample Sizes of the Studies
In this study, we analyzed the characteristics of the reviewed studies' sample groups.For the categorization of the participants of the studies, the numbers and educational levels of the participants were considered.
The distribution of the examined studies by sample group is shown in Table 3.The majority of research appears to have been done on secondary school pupils., followed by primary school students, undergraduates, preservice teachers, and teachers.This result indicates that most of the articles reviewed focus on his K-12 level.The sample of one group was adults with disabilities and another study was about young adults.Also, some of the studies contain teachers and academic staff of universities, which are shown in Table 3 separately.
Sample sizes of the reviewed articles were categorized to different groups.According to Table 4, most of the sample sizes were in the first and second categories such as between 1-15 and 16-30 participants.The following sample size categories were participant numbers 46-60 and more than 91 participants.

Focused Mathematics Concepts or Domains for the Studies
Regarding mathematics concepts or domains selected for studies, geometry (40%) most common subject in reviewed articles.The next preferred subjects were calculus, numbers, or problem-solving.Also, five articles focused on STEM or STEAM, and another five of the reviewed articles were about statistics, finance, money, and probability.The last four articles are about algebraic topics (Table 5).

Types of Technologies Used as Augmented Reality Tool and Their Effectiveness
AR applications were used in most of the reviewed articles.The second most-used AR development tools are HP reveal, unity, and GeoGebra to enhance mathematics teaching and learning (Table 6).
The other remaining development tools and technologies are AR sandbox, the development tools, ARbased STEM content, smartphones, tablet, AR prototype developed for dyscalculia learners, AR and simulations geometry AR app, tablets, AURASMA app, checklists and booklets as guidelines, calculator, iPad, AR mobile math trails app, and Geo+ mentioned in each one of the remaining articles (Table 6).
According to the conclusions of the reviewed studies the most dominant effects were the increase in academic performance and students' learning gains (A5, A30, A21, A29, A4, A9, A33, A16, A27) (Table 7).ARbased learning could effectively enhance academic achievement.From the findings of the studies, it can be concluded that students who were exposed to a learning methodology with AR obtained better results in the level of learning achievement.
Participants of some reviewed articles found that AR is interesting (A24, A37, A39, A7, A32, A13, and A42), easy to understand (A2), and easy to use (A39, A34, A35, and A7).Another significant conclusion is that AR helps to increase the motivation of participants (A33, A26, A31, A3, A22, A39, A7, and A9).Especially the younger participants felt more motivated in a very positive and motivating way (A26 and A31).AR delivers effective instruction to students with disabilities (A12, A36, A20, and A3).AR activities were not only effective as a learning tool, but they were also motivating for students with special educational needs (A3).Some of the studies showed that AR increases student independence and supports individual learning (A12).Also, AR has provided students to learn individually and allowed students to manage their own learning process.Students were in an active learning process with tasks and choosing their own way to examine the virtual objects (A6 and A12).According to the results of the studies coded A23 and A6, AR applications increase the spatial intelligence/spatial visualization abilities of students.In addition to spatial abilities AR is effective in the development of each of the visual thinking skills (A24 and A18) These skills have been titled as, scientific deduction skill, visual reading skill, the skill of analyzing, interpreting visual discrimination skill and the visual shape According to conclusions of the studies AR makes understanding easier for students (A24, A10, and A20).AR improve understanding of concepts and enables an investigative environment, not the computers' mouse move, the person, the space moves within AR environment (A24).According to conclusions of A33, it is emphasized that AR provides concrete examples for mathematical concepts.Some of the studies (Chen, 2019;Jesionkowska et al., 2020;Fernández-Enríquez & Delgado-Martín, 2020;Schutera et al., 2021) pointed out that AR is beneficial for cooperation and teamwork by improving social and communication skills, development of critical thinking to make logical decisions and project management with others.Also Fernández-Enríquez and Delgado-Martín (2020) points out that AR apps can be used on any device for producing content interdisciplinary: different fields' combination (computer science, 3D technology, videogame programming, AR, and application creation) In A31, researchers concluded that the results of the STEAM integrated approach professional development with in-service teachers on outdoor trails were quite impressive.
In experimental studies Alqarni and Alzahrani (2022) and Cahyono et al.'s (2020) results indicated that the mean scores of the experimental group with AR are statistically higher than control groups.There was a significant difference (p<0.001) between the students' mathematical modeling abilities before and after the intervention.By using AR the students' deduction, mathematical proof and modeling skills increased (A5).Some of the studies also focused on retention (A39, A9, and A28).According to the results of AR provides an improved remembering and retention rate.Especially in terms of retention for experimental studies, AR has a significant major impact on memory retention, there is also a significant major difference between groups (A28).According to the results of the studies A9, A41, and A2 by following AR course, all participants showed significant development in problem-solving ability.Students could develop problem-solving skills on word problems, financial problems, and multistep problems.Perceptions and attitudes have a strong effect on the teachers' intentions of continuous use (A34, A11, A19, and A10).AR can help when teachers perceived the ease of use of AR system.It is found in A10 that perceived of usefulness is the strongest factor in predicting students' behavior in the use of GeoGebra AR ones should be explained in clear terms at first mention.Metric equivalents for all non-metric units should be provided.

Disadvantages and Challenges of Augmented Reality in Mathematics Education?
While articles associated with AR in mathematics education emphasized the advantages of its application, there are several obstacles encountered in implementing the technology.The most commonly identified challenges were technical problems with the usage of AR.Some of the technical problems are stated in studies as hardware requirements to support AR, device memory and CPU usage of AR applications, lack of quality internet connection, prolonged use of the application slows down and warms up the device, tracking time varies according to the Internet connection quality (Chen, 2019;Fernández-Enríquez & Delgado-Martín, 2020;Fidan & Tuncel, 2019;Hernández Moreno et al., 2021;Marques & Pombo, 2021a).Also, there are other problems reported such as reading tiredness on small screens of smartphones (Hsieh & Chen, 2019;Gargrish et al., 2022) In addition to technical problems, there are several challenges to pedagogical issues.According to the results of the studies it is found that difficulty of training teachers and its required time and the lack of teachers and students' technological competencies are major barriers to the implementation of AR (Fernández-Enríquez & Delgado-Martín, 2020;Marques & Pombo, 2021a).One of the other pedagogical problems is ineffective classroom integration to learner differences (Jesionkowska et al., 2020).Also, it is stated that teachers' lack of motivation to use new technologies makes it difficult to use AR in mathematics classrooms (Marques & Pombo, 2021b).
Another problem is the learning environment.Because it is found that there were some challenges for students during mathematics lessons because of paying too much attention to virtual information (Jesionkowska et al., 2020;Marques & Pombo, 2021b).
There are other challenges such as a lack of materials apps and lesson scenarios and a lack of suitable digital sources (Jesionkowska et al., 2020;Marques & Pombo, 2021b).Also, there are some problems with human-computer interaction such as less face-to-face interaction between people and dehumanizing the teaching-learning process (Fernández-Enríquez & Delgado-Martín, 2020).Moreover, usability difficulties are also another challenge for implementing AR in mathematics education (Jesionkowska et al., 2020).Also, it is stated that it is difficult to implement AR in classrooms due to the economic costs of technical devices (Fernández-Enríquez & Delgado-Martín, 2020).On the contrary, other researchers claimed that the technological developments of portable gadgets and lower prices of these devices may reduce these threats in the upcoming years (Sirakaya & Alsancak Sirakaya, 2020).

DISSCUSSION
The most frequently mentioned benefit of AR systems in education is still learning benefits, followed by motivation.It is significant to note that every new study continues to document several benefits that enhance not just students' academic performance but also numerous other personality qualities including autonomy, creativity, and teamwork (Garzón & Acevedo, 2019;Silva et.al., 2019).Additionally, the fact that AR systems improve kids' enthusiasm and academic performance may eventually lower the expenses of grade repetition, early school or college dropout, as well as the social issues these occurrences may bring about.Also, the most frequently cited advantages of AR are that they encourage academic success, aids with visualization, and support student-centered learning (Ajit et al., 2021).It is possible to draw the conclusion that as the usage of mobile devices grows, particularly in developing nations, so will the use of AR technology.The use of AR in mathematics education helps the teaching and learning process, according to research findings.It should be remembered, nevertheless, that the novelty effect can also play a role (Garzón & Acevedo, 2019).
To create quality educational materials, the process of developing AR apps should involve engineers (to design code), educators (as theme experts), and other professionals (Cuendet et al., 2013).Similarly to this, a diverse team should make sure that AR apps have capabilities that allow individuals with any kind of disadvantaged people to connect with them, considering the unique preferences and requirements of teachers and students (Garzón & Acevedo, 2019).
The benefits of employing AR appear obvious; therefore, it is also crucial to constantly grow and come up with new approaches to gain.As a result, for academic courses that need students to master abstract information and abilities, we could fully utilize AR education's concrete, interactive environment to turn lessons into concrete learning content, and help students to better comprehend such subjects going ahead.Furthermore, the substantial effectiveness of utilizing AR to learn over longer periods of time indicates that students require a period of adaptation to AR learning method.Thus, in order to achieve a satisfying AR application effect in mathematics education, a long-term teaching design must be developed, followed by the implementation and integration of AR into teaching.
Although AR seems to have many educational advantages, there are still obstacles that this technology must overcome, such as complexity, technical issues, and even teacher resistance.The integration process of AR in mathematics education could be challenging because of technical and pedagogical issues.Advances in mobile technology may be able to help solve these technical issues in the upcoming years.Although there are other difficulties including instructor attitudes toward AR and the requirement for development times for material.The provision of the knowledge and skills required for the successful application of AR in mathematics education is vital, as is overcoming teacher opposition.In ways to help instructors and offer professional development for utilizing AR in mathematics education, further studies are necessary.It is possible to create educational AR resources and AR authoring tools that teachers may use for free.Teachers may take steps to guarantee that AR learning is implemented properly, ideas as integrating physical teaching instruments with AR learning systems to allow students to experience connecting pupils virtual learning with their physical learning by using both virtual and offering hands-on training opportunities (Li et al., 2019).
It is possible to create educational AR resources and AR authoring tools that teachers may use for free.To address these issues, both application developers and researchers might carry out more studies.Future research should explore other difficulties with AR that have been noted in the literature.In earlier research, secondary education teachers and students were preferred as sample groups.According to the evaluation of AR and mathematics education research, secondary school kids are the perfect sample groups, therefore the promise of AR might be expanded beyond only emphasizing student performance and learning outcomes.

Limitations
It is important to mention several limitations of this study.First, just forty-two articles were investigated throughout the review procedure.The journals included in the selected ten databases are the only ones whose papers were examined for this study.However, you may also utilize other databases.The selected databases were searched with a limited number of keywords.For a more thorough understanding of the impact of AR application on K-12 education, future studies should analyze additional factors.Various grade levels and subjects have different benefits and drawbacks that should also be researched in the future.
With this literature study, it is hoped to provide stakeholders with a roadmap for ensuring that AR systems are appropriately included in educational settings and demonstrating AR's state in mathematics education.In order to maximize the benefits of this technology, it is crucial that governmental organizations, businesses, and educational institutions invest more budget in initiatives aimed at creating AR systems.Software developers should work to resolve the technical issues with AR pedagogical tools to make it easier for users to use them, especially those with little technological expertise and those with disabilities.Finally, researchers should carry out more studies to show how effective AR is in mathematics education.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Flow diagram of the manuscript selection process (developed by the authors)

Figure 4 ,Figure 4 .
Figure 4, which is given below illustrates the trends in studies related to AR for learning mathematics between 2017 and 2022.Figure 4 indicates that the studies on AR in mathematics education increased in recent years.The distribution of related articles in the literature in terms of publication years is shown in Figure 4.This may be owing to the development of commercial AR hardware and software.Especially by

Table 2 .
Exclusion and inclusion criteria

Table 3 .
Distribution of reviewed studies according to sample group

Table 4 .
Distribution of reviewed studies according to sample size

Table 5 .
Distribution of reviewed studies according to mathematics concepts/domains

Table 6 .
AR tools/technologies used in reviewed studies

Table 7 .
The conclusions and effectiveness of the reviewed studies