Mobile Skills Research Articles

Designing a Theoretical Integration Framework for Mobile Learning

<br /><table class="data" width="100%"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td class="value"><p>New technologies are rapidly changing mobile learning and making it difficult to control. In addition to educational factors and learning content, a modern mobile learning system must take into account the technical and personal aspects of learning, the devices and aspects related to its evolution and interoperability. Teaching on the other hand has also evolved involving more flexibility in tasks and learning stages, thus using modern technologies that offer more alternatives now. In addition, such tasks may be specific to the learning content as well as the learning context or furthermore the learner's environment.</p><p>Traditionally, mobile platform design relies on the skills of a mobile developer whose knowledge allows him to design mobile applications that are useful to users. But with mobile learning, the design phase involves more than just mobile development skills. For example, if you are designing a platform for practical work, the instructors responsible for the training should be involved. However, the empirical results show that educators do not integrate technology effectively into their curricula. To enable these instructors to develop mobile learning platforms, it is important to facilitate their integration through a theoretical model that will take into account all the ingredients necessary to complete this learning and to balance them in order to ensure its efficiency. In this study authors used a thematic synthesis methodology to present a framework for mobile devices integration in learning. They focused on three models that they think are the most cited in the field of ICT (information and communication technologies) integration in learning.</p><p>The five-axis framework consists of enriching the TPACK framework(Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge model in order to more precisely address mobile learning by covering the following parts: pedagogy, content, mobile technology, learning environment and learner’s profile. It describes relatively in depth the various factors involved as well as the effective interconnection to be ensured to achieve an optimal and efficient integration of m-learning. Balancing those five parts will be a matter of plural reflection when designing or consulting on a mobile learning platform.</p></td></tr></tbody></table>

How does family support work when older adults obtain information from mobile internet?

PurposeMore and more older adults begin to use the mobile internet to obtain information. However, the quality of information obtained through mobile internet by older adults is hard to be guaranteed. The purpose of this paper is to study the role of family support when older adults obtain information from mobile internet.Design/methodology/approachThis study conducted a survey of 263 older adults who owned mobile internet devices such as smartphones or tablet PCs. The theory hypotheses are tested using partial least squares techniques.FindingsFor older adults, family support is the influencing factor of mobile internet literacy improvement. Family emotional support has stronger impacts on the improvement both of mobile internet skill literacy and of mobile internet information literacy than family cognitive support has. Furthermore, the improvement of both mobile internet skill literacy and of mobile internet information literacy hs positive impacts on the quality improvement of obtained information by older adults.Practical implicationsThis paper gives advice on how family members can support older adults during their obtaining information from mobile internet to improve their mobile internet literacy and quality of obtained information.Originality/valueThis study examines the factors that influence mobile internet literacy and quality of obtained information among older adults from the perspective of family support in the Chinese mobile internet context. The research results enrich the internet literacy theory and the information quality theory.

Optical Lace for Synthetic Afferent Neural Networks.

While vision dominates sensing in robots, animals with limited vision deftly navigate their environment using other forms of perception such as touch. Efforts have been made to apply artificial skins with tactile sensing to robots for similarly sophisticated mobile and manipulative skills. The ability to functionally mimic the afferent sensory neural network, required for distributed sensing and communication networks throughout the body is still missing. This limitation is partially due to the lack of cointegration of the mechanosensors in the body of the robot. In this paper, lacings of stretchable optical fibers distributed throughout 3D printed elastomer frameworks create a cointegrated body, sensing, and communication network. This soft, functional structure can localize deformation with sub-millimeter positional accuracy (Err = 0.71 mm), and sub-Newton force resolution (~0.3 N).

Learning mobile money in social networks: Comparing a rural and urban region in Uganda

Mobile financial services help to improve people's lives in developing countries. Recent studies suggest that the lack of skills to use mobile devices is a substantial barrier in the adoption and diffusion of mobile financial services. How inhabitants of developing countries learn skills is largely unknown. We present a field-study of learning mobile money skills using a sample of the Ugandan population. The study sample consists of 208 inhabitants from an urban area, and 526 inhabitants from a rural area. The data shows that in both studies, learning is better explained by social network characteristics compared to attributes of the individual. In particular, individuals' profit from people in their network if those network connections are skillful, regardless of how skilled the learner is. Our results suggest that on top of this direct learning effect, learning happens at an accelerated rate in networks that consist of skilled people. Comparing the rural and urban sample, we find that network effects are more substantial in the rural area relative to the urban area. The results further reveal that individuals with higher education and better mobile phone skills are less dependent on their networks in learning how to use mobile money.

Farmers’ use of mobile phone-based farm advisory services in Punjab, Pakistan

The agriculture sector in Pakistan faces enormous challenges of lack of farm knowledge adoption due to the farmers’ lack of access to the latest information. Recently various mobile phone-based farm advisory services (FAS) have been introduced as an alternative to the conventional extension methods. Despite many ICT initiatives, the performance of these projects remains unsatisfactory. The current study was designed to identify these FAS, farmers’ extent of use, and factors associated with their adoption. Two hundred and forty farmers were surveyed in the rural areas of district Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire and analysed with SPSS software. Findings revealed that 77.08% of the sampled farmers were using mobile-based FAS. Telecom and private sector FAS were reported to have the highest share of users (37.08% and 25.83% respectively). Results of the logistic regression showed that farmers’ educational level, mobile use skills, mobile possession duration and the number of mobile phones in a family were found positively significant, while farmers’ age and contact with extension agents were negatively significant. The findings conclude that education and digital literacy are essential for the use of mobile-based alternatives and emphasize the need for training and educating the farmers.

Does Adding a Tailored Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Mobile Skills App Mediate Rates of Depression

Does Adding a Tailored Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Mobile Skills App Mediate Rates of Depression

Mobile creation in communication studies and the challenge of its adoption in higher education

In the audio-visual industry it is increasingly common to find professional productions created with mobile devices, mobile journalism continues to grow, the smartphone market places increasing emphasis on camera quality and mobile cinema (created with smartphones) is more relevant every day. Yet despite this change at the industry level, the study ‘Apps4CAV’ reveals that future audio-visual creators receive no training in the use of mobile devices as part of their university courses. Communication and media students are aware of very few mobile applications for the production and distribution of audio-visual content and almost none for scriptwriting, pre-production and post-production. Moreover, they make scarce use of the wellknown apps and perceive mobile devices to be valid tools for audio-visual creation only in the personal sphere, but not for academic or professional work. Should our universities provide training to those future audio-visual professionals in the development of mobile creation skills?

Accepting the Internet-of-Things in our homes: The role of user skills

The present study investigates whether skills associated with operating the Internet-of-Things (IoT) contribute to the acceptance and (intended) usage of IoT technology and investigates to what extent these IoT skills are influenced by Internet skills. Extending the technology acceptance model (TAM), we conducted an online survey among 1356 respondents, a sample representative of the Dutch population. The results revealed that IoT skills directly contribute to IoT use and testify to the relevance of the TAM for predicting IoT acceptance and usage. However, people’s attitudes towards the IoT did not influence its acceptance, suggesting that users are not yet fully aware of how IoT use affects their privacy and quality of life in general. Furthermore, the results revealed that several Internet skills are an important precedent for IoT acceptance and usage. Mobile, information navigation, social, and creative Internet skills directly or indirectly contributed to the level of IoT skills. It can be concluded that people’s assessments of their IoT skills and that pragmatic considerations are important for its acceptance and that being skilled in using the IoT requires sufficient Internet skills.

Mobile technology use and skills among individuals with fragile X syndrome: implications for healthcare decision making.

Little is known about how individuals with fragile X syndrome (FXS) and their families use technology in daily life and what skills individuals with FXS can perform when using mobile technologies. Using a mixed-methods design, including an online survey of parents (n=198) and a skills assessment of individuals with FXS (n=6), we examined the experiences and abilities of individuals with FXS for engaging with mobile technology. Parents reported that individuals with FXS often used technology in their daily lives, with variations based on age of child, sex, autism status, depression, and overall ability. Parents frequently sought and shared FXS-related information online. Assessment data revealed that individuals with FXS demonstrated proficiency in interacting with technology. Mobile technology is a tool that can be used in FXS to build skills and increase independence rather than simply for recreational purposes. Implications for using mobile technology to enhance healthcare decision making are discussed.

Cash-Flow Taxes in an International Setting

We model the effects of cash-flow taxes, differing according to the location of the tax, on the behavior of a multinational producing and selling in two countries with three sources of economic rent: a fixed basic-production factor (located with initial production), mobile managerial skill, and a fixed final production factor (located with consumption). In general, governments face trade-offs in choosing between alternative taxes. A source-based cash-flow tax creates welfare-impairing production and consumption distortions, but falls partially on firm owners who may be nonresident. By contrast, a destination-based cash-flow tax does not distort behavior, but falls only on domestic residents. (JEL F23, H25, H87)

A skills perspective on the adoption and use of mobile money services in Uganda

Adoption rates of mobile financial services within sub-Saharan Africa still appear to be below par. The 2016 Groupe Spéciale Mobile Association report shows that over 60 per cent of the adult population in sub- Saharan Africa do not use mobile financial services. We investigate how cognitive resources, namely, mobile phone skills and English literacy, influence the use of mobile financial services. We test our hypotheses using a sample of 208 individuals from an urban location in Central Uganda. We measure actual mobile phone skill using a newly developed scale. The results show that a marginal increase in mobile phone skills has a strong effect on the odds of adopting mobile money, but a less strong effect on the extent to which the functionalities of the mobile money application are used. On the other hand, English literacy has no influence on both adoption and the magnitude of services individuals use.

Effectiveness of Mobile Skill Teaching Software for Parents of Individuals with Intellectual Disability

Mobile skill teaching software has been developed for the parents of the children with intellectual disability to be used in teaching daily life skills. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effectiveness of the mobile skill teaching software developed for the use of the parents of the children with intellectual disability. In accordance, the effectiveness of the software has been tested using multiple probe design with probe conditions across subjects’ research methodology which is one of the single subject research models. Four adults with intellectual disability and their parents participated in the study. The parents participating in the study taught their children with intellectual disability how to cook cheese omelet with the use of the software. The data obtained as a consequence of the experimental study suggests that the activities carried out by the parents with the use of the software were found to be effective.

A Mobile Phone-Based Life Skills Training Program for Substance Use Prevention Among Adolescents: Pre-Post Study on the Acceptance and Potential Effectiveness of the Program, Ready4life.

BackgroundSubstance use and misuse often first emerge during adolescence. Generic life skills training that is typically conducted within the school curriculum is effective at preventing the onset and escalation of substance use among adolescents. However, the dissemination of such programs is impeded by their large resource requirements in terms of personnel, money, and time. Life skills training provided via mobile phones might be a more economic and scalable approach, which additionally matches the lifestyle and communication habits of adolescents.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to test the acceptance and initial effectiveness of an individually tailored mobile phone–based life skills training program in vocational school students.MethodsThe fully automated program, named ready4life, is based on social cognitive theory and addresses self-management skills, social skills, and substance use resistance skills. Program participants received up to 3 weekly text messages (short message service, SMS) over 6 months. Active program engagement was stimulated by interactive features such as quiz questions, message- and picture-contests, and integration of a friendly competition with prizes in which program users collected credits with each interaction. Generalized estimating equation (GEE) analyses were used to investigate for changes between baseline and 6-month follow-up in the following outcomes: perceived stress, self-management skills, social skills, at-risk alcohol use, tobacco smoking, and cannabis use.ResultsThe program was tested in 118 school classes at 13 vocational schools in Switzerland. A total of 1067 students who owned a mobile phone and were not regular cigarette smokers were invited to participate in the life skills program. Of these, 877 (82.19%, 877/1067; mean age=17.4 years, standard deviation [SD]=2.7; 58.3% females) participated in the program and the associated study. A total of 43 students (4.9%, 43/877) withdrew their program participation during the intervention period. The mean number of interactive program activities that participants engaged in was 15.5 (SD 13.3) out of a total of 39 possible activities. Follow-up assessments were completed by 436 of the 877 (49.7%) participants. GEE analyses revealed decreased perceived stress (odds ratio, OR=0.93; 95% CI 0.87-0.99; P=.03) and increases in several life skills addressed between baseline and the follow-up assessment. The proportion of adolescents with at-risk alcohol use declined from 20.2% at baseline to 15.5% at follow-up (OR 0.70, 95% CI 0.53-0.93; P=.01), whereas no significant changes were obtained for tobacco (OR 0.94, 95% CI 0.65-1.36; P=.76) or cannabis use (OR 0.91, 95% CI 0.67-1.24; P=.54).ConclusionsThese results reveal high-level acceptance and promising effectiveness of this interventional approach, which could be easily and economically implemented. A reasonable next step would be to test the efficacy of this program within a controlled trial.

A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of an Integrated In-person and Mobile Phone Delivered Counseling and Text Messaging Intervention to Reduce HIV Transmission Risk among Male Sex Workers in Chennai, India.

Men who have sex with men (MSM) are at increased risk for HIV infection in India, particularly those who engage in transactional sex with other men (i.e., male sex workers; MSW). Despite the need, HIV prevention efforts for Indian MSW are lacking. As in other settings, MSW in India increasingly rely on the use of mobile phones for sex work solicitation. Integrating mobile phone technology into an HIV prevention intervention for Indian MSW may mitigate some of the challenges associated with face-to face approaches, such as implementation, lack of anonymity, and time consumption, while at the same time proving to be both feasible and useful. This is a pilot randomized controlled trial to examine participant acceptability, feasibility of study procedures, and preliminary efficacy for reducing sexual risk for HIV. MSW (N=100) were equally randomized to: (1) a behavioral HIV prevention intervention integrating in-person and mobile phone delivered HIV risk reduction counseling, and daily, personalized text or voice messages as motivating "cognitive restructuring" cues for reducing condomless anal sex (CAS); or (2) a standard of care (SOC) comparison condition. Both groups received HIV counseling and testing at baseline and 6-months, and completed ACASI-based, behavioral and psychosocial assessments at baseline, 3, and 6months. Mixed-effects regression procedures specifying a Poisson distribution and log link with a random intercept and slope for month of follow-up was estimated to assess the intervention effect on the primary outcomes: (1) CAS acts with male clients who paid them for sex, and (2) CAS acts with male non-paying sexual partners-both outcomes assessed over the past month. The intervention was both feasible (98% retention at 6-months) and acceptable (>96% of all intervention sessions attended); all intervention participants rated the intervention as "acceptable" or "very acceptable." A reduction in the reported number of CAS acts with male clients who paid them for sex in the past month was seen in both study conditions. MSW in the intervention condition reported a faster rate of decline in the number of CAS acts with male clients in the past month from the baseline to both the 3-month (B=-1.20; 95% CI -1.68, -0.73; p<0.0001) and 6-month (B=-2.44; 95% CI -3.35, -1.53; p<0.00001) assessment visits compared to the SOC condition. Post-hoc contrasts indicated that, at 3months, participants in the intervention condition reported 1.43 (SD=0.29) CAS acts with male clients in the past month compared to 4.85 (SD=0.87) in the control condition (p=0.0003). Furthermore, at 6months, the intervention condition participants reported 0.24 (SD=0.09) CAS acts with male clients in the past month compared to 2.79 (SD=0.79) in the control condition (p<0.0001). Findings are encouraging and provide evidence of feasibility and acceptability, and demonstrate initial efficacy (for reducing sexual risk for HIV) of a behavioral HIV prevention intervention for Indian MSW that combines daily, personalized text or voice messages with mobile phone-delivered sexual risk reduction counseling and skills building. Future testing of the intervention in a fully powered randomized controlled efficacy trial is warranted.

Agile Development Method for Mobile applications: A Study

It is highly important to be knowledgeable about the software development methodologies available in order to make the right choice when it comes to developing a mobile application. For developing mobile applications, existing software development process models are incorporated but looking at remarkable growth of mobile devices, the complexity involved in the development of mobile application needs a dedicated life cycle process model, instead of using traditional life cycle process models. Although many existing life cycle models are adapted for mobile application development but there are certain constraints that needs to be addresses specifically. This paper presents the results of literature review performed in order to identify newly created methodologies targeting the development of mobile applications. The unique requirements and constraints associated with mobile systems have brought new challenges to software development for such environments as its demands extensive improvements to traditional systems development methodologies in order to fulfill special needs of this field. Agile software development methods have caught attention of software engineers and researchers worldwide. The comparative analysis is performed using the methods life-cycle coverage and empirical evidences. This paper provides detailed review and analysis on the use of agile methodologies with mobile application skills.

Mobile and Information Literacy Perceptions and Skills of Library and Information Sciences and Humanities Students From Bulgaria and Turkey

FROM THE COLUMN EDITORSWelcome to the Global Postcards column! We are so excited to bring you news and projects from around the world. In this column, our contributors from Bulgaria and Turkey bring us a comparative study of mobile and information literacy among students at two universities in those countries. In addition to presenting perceptions of students around these literacy concepts, their research project also highlights growing trends in the use of distance education and web-based study materials. Thanks to the contributors for this issue, and please keep the submissions coming!If you would like to send a submission, please contact either of the column's co-editors: Jacqueline Solis, jsolis@email.unc.edu, and Robin Kear, rlk25@pitt.edu.

Effect of collaborative learning on enhancement of students’ self-efficacy, social skills and knowledge towards mobile apps development

This study investigated the impact of a collaborative learning intervention on students’ self-efficacy, social skills and knowledge toward mobile apps development. Twenty-nine undergraduate students were recruited for participation in the research study. They participated in a 12-week collaborative learning intervention. The self-efficacy for learning and performance scales from the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire and Social Skills Inventory were used to evaluate students’ self-efficacy in mobile apps development and social skills respectively. A knowledge of mobile apps assessment form was designed to assess a student’s knowledge in mobile apps development. The results revealed that students experienced a significant increase in knowledge of mobile apps. However, collaborative learning only has a small positive effect on a student’s self-efficacy and social skills. Implications for practice and research are provided for future study.

Cost analysis of a simulation-based training for health workforce in India.

Training of health-care workforce including doctors, staff nurses, and Auxiliary Nurse Midwives using simulation techniques for skill enhancement have been used in a variety of clinical settings to improve the quality of training. India adopted the skills laboratories model for capacity building of health workers in maternal and child health in Bihar state. Current economic evaluation was performed with the objective of assessing the financial and economic cost of implementing skills laboratories. Data on all resources spent for the development of skill laboratory and implementing training during financial year 2011 were collected from Patna district in Bihar state. We used standard methods to estimate the full financial and economic costs of implementing the skills laboratories from a health system perspective. Overall cost of implementing 20 permanent and 10 mobile skills laboratory training in Bihar was Indian Rupee (INR) 8849895 from a financial perspective. The cost was nearly two times higher when using an economic perspective to account for opportunity cost of all resources used. The unit cost of training a participant using permanent and mobile laboratory was INR 6856 and INR 7474, respectively assuming an annual volume of 90 training. The optimum number of training which should be operated annually in a skills laboratory to make it most efficient is about 70-80 training per annum. Economic implications of skills laboratory organization should be borne while planning scale up in Bihar and other states. Further research on the effectiveness of two models of skill laboratory, that is, permanent and mobile and their cost is recommended.

A Small Randomized Controlled Pilot Trial Comparing Mobile and Traditional Pain Coping Skills Training Protocols for Cancer Patients with Pain

Psychosocial pain management interventions are efficacious for cancer pain but are underutilized. Recent advances in mobile health (mHealth) technologies provide new opportunities to decrease barriers to access psychosocial pain management interventions. The objective of this study was to gain information about the accessibility and efficacy of mobile pain coping skills training (mPCST) intervention delivered to cancer patients with pain compared to traditional in-person pain coping skills training intervention. This study randomly assigned participants (N = 30) to receive either mobile health pain coping skills training intervention delivered via Skype or traditional pain coping skills training delivered face-to-face (PCST-trad). This pilot trial suggests that mPCST is feasible, presents low burden to patients, may lead to high patient engagement, and appears to be acceptable to patients. Cancer patients with pain in the mPCST group reported decreases in pain severity and physical symptoms as well as increases in self-efficacy for pain management that were comparable to changes in the PCST-trad group (p's < 0.05). These findings suggest that mPCST, which is a highly accessible intervention, may provide benefits similar to an in-person intervention and shows promise for being feasible, acceptable, and engaging to cancer patients with pain.

Educating health care practitioners: an in depth evaluation of the Mobile Skills Unit (MSU) training programme in three exemplar venues

Educating health care practitioners: an in depth evaluation of the Mobile Skills Unit (MSU) training programme in three exemplar venues