Perceived Actors and Factors for Sustaining M-learning in Higher Education: A South African Students Perspective

Abstract

This paper reveals how a multiple case study approach, following an interpretive philosophy, may be adopted to profoundly understand factors and actors for sustaining m-learning adoption and usage within higher educational institutions from students perspective. Therefore, the use of Actor Network Theory (ANT) encapsulated unambiguous findings which might not have been possible to achieve, extract or uncover had traditional adoption, acceptance and use theoretical frameworks been adopted. This study found that in order to sustain m-learning adoption and usages in higher education, there must be a collaboration between students, lecturers and other departments responsible for providing learning with technology. The paper also evident that visible top management support as well as visible impact of mobile learning (m-learning) usage, compliance to institutional m-learning guidelines and methodology, continuous upgrade of Learning Management Systems (LMS) and availability of technology are some of the actors and factors to be considered for sustaining m-learning in higher education. These findings of which were extracted from thirty (30) students in South African three higher educational institutions, using open-ended qualitative questionnaires, could assist higher educational institutions to be in better position to assess their level of m-learning adoption and usage to establish its sustainability.