University Students’ Experiences of the Use of Mlearning as a Training Resource for the Acquisition of Biomechanical Knowledge

Ignacio López-Moranchel,Esther Martín-Íñigo,Evelia Franco,Patricia Maurelos-Castell,Belén Urosa,Victoria Montes

doi:10.3390/educsci11090479

Abstract

Mobile learning (mLearning) is now being increasingly used in university education, with positive impacts on the motivation and predisposition of students when learning. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of the use of mobile applications as a learning resource in applied biomechanics, with regard to attitudinal variables (interest, motivation, applicability and learning experience) and its efficacy in the learning of general physics contents. A quasi-experimental design was proposed, with the random assignment of participants to experimental and control groups, with the post-trial measurement of a sample of 76 university students studying Applied Biomechanics, who were given an ad-hoc questionnaire in order to evaluate attitudinal aspects, as well as a test of knowledge. With regard to attitudinal aspects, higher scores were observed among the group which used the applications as learning instruments (the experimental group) when evaluating their interest in biomechanics (t = 2.79; p < 0.05; d = −0.641), the applicability of the applications in real life (t = 7.34; p < 0.001; d = −1.687) and the general evaluation of the practical sessions (t = 6.45; p < 0.001; d = −1.481). At the conceptual level, significant differences were observed in the contents worked on with the KinematicLab Jump© application. Our results show the positive effect of the use of applications on important attitudinal aspects in the learning of university students, without any relevant effect on the acquisition of conceptual learning.

Highlights

A considerable portion of education research in recent years has focussed, on identifying the most effective actions and situations to generate and consolidate learning, and on what it is that incites the desire to learn
Dweck and Leggett [4,5] suggested that motivation should be oriented towards certain competency or learning goals which permit the acquisition of new skills and mastery of the subject, suggesting that the achievement of those goals would require the use of active strategies which lead to profound, transferable learning and which make it possible to tackle new challenges, giving applicability to that learning [6,7]
Likewise, when analysing the relations between the different variables (Table 2), it was observed that Actas de INTCESS 2020-7th International Conference on Education and Social Sciences there were significant correlations between the series of attitudinal variables and between the series of learning variables, but not between the two series, with the exception of the contents worked on using the KinematicLab Jump© application, which positively correlated with the attitudinal variables: applicability for professional life (r = 0.39 **) and general evaluation of the learning experience (r = 0.25 *)

Summary

Introduction

A considerable portion of education research in recent years has focussed, on identifying the most effective actions and situations to generate and consolidate learning, and on what it is that incites the desire to learn. Approaches have been promoted which take advantage of the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs), as well as the availability of internet connections. Along these lines, an increasing number of teachers make use of mobile technologies in their classes or outside them, placing them at the service of learning with multiple approaches within what is known as mobile learning (mobile learning), a resource which uses mobile communication technologies and offers students the ability to learn at any place and at any time. That definition is based on the proposal by O’Malley [9], which defines mLearning as: Any sort of learning that happens when the learner is not at a fixed, predetermined location, or learning that happens when the learner takes advantage of the learning opportunities offered by mobile technologies

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