SOCIAL IMPACT OF MOBILE LEARNING TABLETS ON EDUCATION AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: EVIDENCE FROM A PRIVATE NIGERIAN TERTIARY INSTITUTION

Abstract

The advent of Information and Computer Technology (ICT) has suddenly turned the world into a global village. One of the ICT gadgets that appeared to be instrumental to the growing global socialization is mobile learning tablet. This study focused on ascertaining the social impact of mobile tablets on education and sustainable development. Recently, a private university in Nigeria with a population of over 8000 distributed Samsung tablet to all students. Using the clustered sampling technique, 220 students participated in the survey study. Simple descriptive statistics and t-test statistics were used in data analysis. The findings were: Out of the five most preferred websites indicated by respondents, the fairly academically inclined website visited by the respondents was Google (87.9%); 81.4% of the respondents were either always or sometimes using the mobile learning tablets for social networking; 48.2% of the respondents used the mobile tablets for chatting sometimes or always. 47.3% of the respondents reported that the mobile tablet had more negative social impact on them.; 58.3% of the respondents concurred they were predominantly using the mobile learning tablet for non-academic purposes; gender factor tended not to have a significant effect on the use of mobile tablets [t=-.825; p=.411]. Hours of usage had a significant social impact amongst the undergraduate students [t=-11.9; p=.000]. Those who used the mobile learning tablet more frequently tend to experience more negative social impact. Based on the findings, it was recommended that management of educational institutions need to exert more control on the use of mobile learning devices to experience more sustainable development-oriented social impact in the system.