Children and parents' reading of an augmented reality picture book: Analyses of behavioral patterns and cognitive attainment

Previous studies on augmented reality (AR) book learning have not provided an in-depth examination of the learning process, especially the interaction involved in child-parent shared book reading. Choosing an AR picture book to introduce its artistic work, this study aimed to explore how children and parents read the book through a series of analyses of behavioral patterns and cognitive attainment. A total of 33 child-parent pairs voluntarily participated in this study. Based on the indicators of the child-parent reading behaviors generated through content analysis, four behavioral patterns of AR picture book reading were identified: parent as dominator, child as dominator, communicative child-parent pair, and low communicative child-parent pair. The relationships between the child-parent reading behaviors and the children's cognitive attainment were further identified. Specifically, the child-parent behaviors of “parent as dominator” and “low communicative child-parent pair” were likely associated with simple description of the appearance of the artistic work by the children (low-level cognitive attainment). Conversely, the “child as dominator” and “communicative child-parent pair” behaviors resulted in the children explaining the artistic work they had seen or using their imagination to describe the content of the book (high-level cognitive attainment).