Eirini Maria Paraskevioti

Despite the documented benefits that Augmented Reality (AR) offers for language education, teacher adoption remains constrained by barriers that differ fundamentally in tractability. For instance, infrastructure limitations require systemic investment whereas attitudinal concerns may respond to awareness-raising and professional development. The present study examines the barrier hierarchy among Greek English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers and the relationship between AR knowledge and barrier perceptions. Using a mixed-methods design, EFL teachers ( N = 266) completed a survey with subsets participating in focus groups ( n = 35) and semi-structured interviews ( n = 18). Quantitative analysis revealed that infrastructure barriers exceeded attitudinal barriers. AR knowledge was associated with lower attitudinal barriers but showed no relationship with infrastructure perceptions, indicating that awareness interventions cannot overcome material constraints. Evidence of student learning gains emerged as the strongest condition for adoption readiness, outweighing even resource provision. The qualitative data broadly converged with the barrier hierarchy but also exposed heterogeneity—including divergent stances and context-specific reasoning that the quantitative aggregate obscured. Exploratory analyses further showed that barrier profiles varied by teaching level. It is, therefore, concluded that, where infrastructure constraints dominate, awareness-raising alone may be insufficient to accelerate AR adoption and that coordinated investment across infrastructure, knowledge, and pedagogy offers a more plausible path.

Augmented Reality (AR) has been found to produce significant effects on individual learning outcomes but its impact on collaborative applications remains moderate. Existing AR frameworks emphasize individual instructional design, whereas frameworks for collaborative learning rarely engage with the spatial and device-mediated affordances of mobile AR. In response to this inadequacy in the literature, we introduce the Mobile Augmented-Reality Storytelling for Vocational Education and Training (MARS-VET) framework, a four-dimensional conceptual architecture that integrates Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) scripting principles with mobile AR affordances for collaborative English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing in Vocational Education and Training (VET) settings. MARS-VET synthesizes theoretical perspectives across four dimensions: contextual anchoring, which embeds activities within authentic workplace scenarios; collaborative orchestration, which structures group interaction through macro- and micro-level scripts; competency cultivation, which sequences writing progression from model-based reproduction toward autonomous professional text production; and capacity building, which addresses the professional-development requirements of implementing educators. Content validity was established through expert panel evaluation involving international specialists (N = 11) who rated the framework against 36 items using a four-point relevance scale and provided additional qualitative feedback. The Scale-level Content Validity Index (S-CVI/Ave = 0.91) exceeded established thresholds, with all four dimensions achieving satisfactory item-level indices. Experts reached unanimous agreement on items addressing workplace scenario identification and co-located access to linguistic resources. Qualitative feedback led to terminology refinements and clarification of orchestration mechanisms. The framework offers VET institutions and educators a reference for the design and evaluation of collaborative AR experiences in an area where integrative frameworks have so far been lacking.