Augmented reality in education for people who are deaf or hard of hearing: a systematic literature review

Education for people who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) is full of challenges, especially in a context that involves interaction with people who do not know Sign Language (SL) or even during SL learning. Unsurprisingly, digital technologies emerged to minimize such educational challenges. This paper presents a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) on using a prominent digital technology: Augmented Reality (AR). It synthesizes the literature on AR-based learning for people who are DHH. We seek to identify design elements and their impacts on existing research dedicated to applying AR to this learning context. Our work consisted of searching scientific databases and performing the Snowballing method (Backward and Forward) on their citations and references. Out of 1694 documents, we found 26 studies published in journals and conferences between 2006 and 2020 that use AR for DHH education. As a result, the SLR identified 12 studies focused on Sign Language (SL) teaching and four on Mathematics learning. Most of these studies use marker-based solutions (60%); they reported positive impacts on the DHH students' motivation, interaction, and learning. We did not find prevalence in research methodologies and methods used during AR tool evaluations, and only one study uses AR for Science learning. SLR studies also report discomfort when using head-mounted displays (40%) and problems handling the AR mobile software (20%).