The Art Nouveau Path: From Gameplay Logs to Learning Analytics in a Mobile Augmented Reality Game for Sustainability Education

Mobile augmented reality games (MARGs) generate rich digital traces of how students engage with complex, place-based learning tasks. This study analyses gameplay logs from the Art Nouveau Path, a location-based MARG within the EduCITY Digital Teaching and Learning Ecosystem (DTLE), to develop a learning analytics workflow that uses detailed gameplay logs to inform sustainability-focused educational design. During the post-game segment of a repeated cross-sectional intervention, 439 students in 118 collaborative groups completed 36 quiz tasks at 8 Art Nouveau heritage Points of Interest (POI). Group-level logs (4248 group-item responses) capturing correctness, AR-specific scores, session duration and pacing were transformed into interpretable indicators, combined with error mapping and cluster analysis, and triangulated with post-game open-ended reflections. Results show high overall feasibility (mean accuracy 85.33%) and a small subset of six conceptually demanding items with lower accuracy (mean 68.36%, range 58.47% to 72.88%) concentrated in specific path segments and media types. Cluster analysis yields three collaborative gameplay profiles, labeled ‘fast but fragile’, ‘slow but moderate’ and ‘thorough and successful’, which differ systematically in accuracy, pacing and engagement with AR-mediated tasks. The study proposes a replicable event-based workflow that links mobile AR gameplay logs to design decisions for heritage-based education for sustainability.