Use of mobile devices by students to support learning in universities: a case of Muni university
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Date
2017-06
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
International Journal of Research in Engineering & Technology
Abstract
It’s a requirement in admission for every student to come with a mobile device for any programme admitted.
The main objective of this study was to establish how the students use mobile devices in lecture rooms /classroom this was
achieved by answering the following research questions: which mobile devices are owned by students? what are benefits of
using mobile devices by students?and how mobile devices are used for learning?Quantitative design was employed using
questionnaires containing a five (5) Likert scale items ranging from strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree-strongly
disagree and open-ended items was utilized in this study to obtain quantitative information to answer the research
questions: A total population of 331 was considered and sample size of 181 was obtained using Krejcie and Morgan table,
stratified sampling was used to collect data from each stratum and data was analyzed using SPSS Version 16.
The reliability of the data collected was tested using the Cronbach's reliability test coefficient where the overall value of all
the options was on average 0.65 which was beyond recommended 0.6 for an instrument to be declared reliable.
The findings showed that, 56.2% (91) respondents use smart phones, 40.7 %( 66) use Laptops in class and only 1.2 %( 2)
use kindle in class room while no student indicated that he/she uses Ipad or PDA in classroom or lecture room. In terms of
the benefits of using mobile devices, students the following among the top four (4) benefits; easy to access information,
storage of information, mobility of the device and use of social media but cost effective and security of information were
ranked last. The findings also showed students use mobile devices to access course materials, doing class work, send and
receive e-mails and taking and sharing of notes but virtual classroom, discussion forums and using pre-recorded lecturers
with PowerPoint were ranked among the last three (3). This study recommends that Smartphone’s and mobile devices
should be allowed to use by students, lecturer to start virtual classroom, discussion forums and using pre-recorded lecturers
with PowerPoint so that the students can also benefit from these functionalities since they were ranked among the last
three(3) services not used.
Description
Keywords
Usage, Mobile Devices, Learning, Muni University
Citation
Guma Ali, Businge Phelix Mbabazi, Nkamwesiga Lawrence & Andogah Geoffrey (2017). Use of Mobile Devices By Students To Support Learning in Universities : a Case. International Journal of Research in Engineering & Technology, 5(6), 69–80