Inês Mendes

Inês Mendes has a Bachelor’s degree in physical and chemistry teaching and a Master’s degree in communication and education in science, so her professional experience includes informal and formal science communication, as she worked in a science museum and taught to middle school students for several years. Currently she is in her third year of the multimedia in education PhD programme, at the University of Aveiro, Portugal, and her research is centred on how Augmented Reality technology can enhance the educational experience of spatial astronomy concepts in middle school.

PhD Project. The aim of the research is to develop an educational conceptual model to understand, frame and guide the process of incorporating Augmented Reality technology into 7th grade astronomy teaching. Based on the Design-Based Research methodology, fieldwork will be carried out, first inquiring teachers’ perceptions to characterise the educational experience, and then involving experimental and control groups of students where the educational experiment will be implemented in a classroom context. The impact on the educational experience will be analysed, namely in terms of students performance, motivation for learning and overcoming diagnosed misconceptions.