Abstract
Tablets are rapidly growing pervasive, influencing all age groups of people especially adolescents. Utilizing quantitative methodology, this study sought to explore the perceptions of students and lecturers on using tablets for learning at a rural university located in the Eastern Cape state of South Africa. A descriptive case study research design was employed. A sample of 155 from a population of 254 students and 14 from a population of 25 lecturers voluntarily participated in the survey. Data collected from the structured questionnaires were captured into Statistical Package for Social Sciences (version 24). Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive and inferential analysis. Data collected from both stakeholders were triangulated by sources to confirm the findings. The results revealed that students answered the exercise questions, developed the projects and started to search concepts in detail after getting tablets. Although a statistically significant difference was there between the perceptions of students and lecturers, both stakeholders showed positive attitudes toward the students' use of tablets for learning in university classrooms. The study recommended that lecturers must provide more tablet related learning tasks to students in order to make them accept tablet as a learning tool and lecturers must ensure regularly that those tasks are done effectively.
Highlights
The past decade has witnessed the technological advancement of many digital gadgets such as tablet computers, smartphones and iPads
Data were collected from one of the campuses at a rural university located in the Eastern Cape state of South Africa
The justification for choosing this university as the study site was mainly due to the fact that at the time of data collection, only in this university tablets were offered to the students for learning purpose
Summary
The past decade has witnessed the technological advancement of many digital gadgets such as tablet computers, smartphones and iPads. The rapid growth of these mobile technologies is influencing people in all fields especially in education [1]. Students are using these technologies for being online to perform mobile learning both inside and outside the classroom [2, 3]. More opportunities are formed for tertiary students to enhance their learning due to the growth of these mobile technologies [4]. Among all the mobile devices, tablet is the fastest development tool which has made an impact in education in the United States [5]. Students in the higher education institutions are very quick in adopting tablets [6]
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