This thesis investigates the learning potentials of Augmented Reality in order to create design principles for further development of Augmented Reality for use in learning situations.

Through a speculative design workshop student teachers imagined and speculated on the use of Augmented Reality in learning situations. The primary purpose of this thesis was to investigate the learning potentials of Augmented Reality and to contribute with an empirically founded study that acts as a foundation for creating design principles for the further development of Augmented Reality for use in learning situations. The design principles are intended to inform the developers design process when designing Augmented Reality for use in learning situations. The secondary purpose was to investigate the use of speculative design as a method for gathering empirical data.

We chose a pragmatic inquiry-based approach as a methodological tool supplemented by speculative design as a method for gaining knowledge about an emerging technology. We conducted five speculative design workshops with student teachers with the intention of gaining insights into the learning potentials of Augmented Reality. Key situations from the speculative design workshops were analyzed and considered in the context of experiential learning theory by John Dewey and the theory of multimodalities by Gunther R. Kress through thematic analysis. This led to a formulation of learning potentials of Augmented Reality, and the development of design principles.

Our investigation suggests that Augmented Reality can create learning situations that supports experiential learning by bridging the physical and virtual world and expanding the possibilities for interaction by placing augmented artifacts in a context. It can also create an augmented context that makes it possible for the learner to experience things in real life that are not otherwise possible. Learning situations using Augmented Reality should include the possibility of coordinating broad activities where multiple learning resources are combined and offer a help feature when the learning situations are moved to a context outside the school. We have, based on the collected knowledge of the thesis, created three design principles that can be used to create learning situations using Augmented Reality that supports experiential learning.