Ethical Use of Mobile Technology in the Academic Environment

Abstract

Mobile technologies are becoming more and more accepted and used as pedagogical tools in higher education with multiple valences on teacher professional learning. The main aim of this research is to investigate the attitudes of university teachers towards ethical use of mobile technologies. There was designed a quantitative research methodology based on the use of a questionnaire. 104 teachers from universities in the north-eastern part of Romania participated in the study. The results of this research highlight university teachers’ positive attitudes towards the use of mobile technologies in higher education. The ethical issues of using mobile technology identified at the level of teachers’ perceptions are software piracy, inequality in student access to mobile technologies, retrieving information without reference to sources and plagiarism. The research results have implications on the educational process from higher education, especially for integrating mobile technologies and their ethical use.