Abstract
Mobile Learning (mLearning) has become an influential educational technology in higher education. With the internet and other technological developments, mLearning makes it possible for students to learn, collaborate, and share ideas with each other. However, mLearning student acceptance is critical to its effectiveness. Attitudes toward learning is a vital factor in deciding whether or not students are ready to use mLearning for academic purpose. Student attitudes may identify strengths and weaknesses of mLearning and facilitate development of the technology. This qualitative study aims to investigate graduate students’ attitudes and perceptions toward using mLearning in education. Data were collected by conducting interviews with fourteen graduate students enrolled in masters and doctoral programs in the College of Education at King Khalid University (KKU), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Generally, graduate students in education disciplines had positive attitudes toward mLearning and expressed a desire to use it in their future educational settings. Students perceived mLearning to be valuable for academic purposes, noting the convenience of being able to access course materials, the ease of communicating with other students and professors at their own pace, and the flexibility mobile devices offer over desktop or laptop computers. However, students identified a few usability issues like small screen size and keyboards, and additional cost of mobile devices and the corresponding cost of Internet access as constraints for using mobile devices for learning.
Highlights
Mobile technologies are portable devices supported by Internet connection
This paper aims to determine if the attitudes of graduate students concerning mLearning are generally positive, indicating a ripe environment for adoption of mLearning pedagogies in Saudi institutions of higher education
In general, the results of this study indicated that graduate students have positive attitudes and perceptions towards mLearning in education
Summary
Mobile technologies are portable devices supported by Internet connection. In recent years, these devices have become popular among young people (Al-Hajri, Al-Sharhan, & Al-Hunaiyyan, 2017), among university students (Park, Nam & Cha, 2012). Successful implementation of mLearning in education is based on student attitudes and willingness to use mobile devices for learning ( Al-Shahrani, 2016; Shorfuzzaman & Alhussein, 2016). Given this background, the primary objective of this paper is to understand graduate students’ attitudes and perceptions towards mLearning in education. Mobile devices are useful as instructional tools (Al-Hajri, Al-Sharhan, & Al-Hunaiyyan, 2017) that can be integrated into educational context to improve teaching and learning outcomes (Holenko Dlab, Hoic-Bozic, & Boticki, 2017) These devices are efficient tools for students to interact, connect, communicate and collaborate with classmates and instructors in a course or seek content by accessing rich digital resources (Al-Shahrani & Walker, 2016). This paper aims to determine if the attitudes of graduate students concerning mLearning are generally positive, indicating a ripe environment for adoption of mLearning pedagogies in Saudi institutions of higher education
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