Educating Children, the Preventive Measures of COVID-19 Transmission by Using Augmented Reality

This study investigated the effectiveness of applying augmented reality in enhancing children's awareness of the preventive measures of COVID-19 pandemic. To this end, (30) male and female children at Al-Hussein school in Ma'an city in Jordan participated in this study. Augmented reality application so-called protect children that employs sound, video, and photos to educate children was designed. The study raised two research questions; the first one examined the shortcomings of using traditional teaching methods at Al-Hussein school in Ma'an city in Jordan in raising the children's awareness of the preventive measures during COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, the second research question addressed the effectiveness of using Protect Children AR Application in educating children about the preventive measures during COVID-19 pandemic. The study used observation in a form of a note taking. The assessment criteria for analyzing data is classified into three parts, namely, memorization, performance, and effectiveness. The findings indicated that protect children AR application is more effective than traditional teaching methods. The students were able to memorize and perform the preventive measures of COVID-19 in terms of wearing masks, washing hand, and social distancing after the use of AR application. Moreover, the students were more motivated towards imitating the video in AR application more than imitating their teachers in the school. Prospects for future studies we see in designing another AR application that aim at raising the awareness of secondary school students regarding the riskiness of not being vaccinated in order to reliably generate robust conclusions about the findings.