Sistema de gestión de calidad ISO 9001:2008

The research question in this section is “how do participants view the use of mobile devices as a learning tool”. Three different views regarding the deployment of mobile devices (including very small portable laptops) for learning are as follows. Note that some participants may not want to use mobile devices for learning, however they enjoy learning/studying in mobile environments.

1. Enthusiastic about m-learning– 11 participants were keen users of m-learning

and had used mobile devices for internet-browsing and/or accessing their lecture notes (both on- and offline). They liked the convenience of using a small device to a) access learning content, b) make notes, c) record them using the recorder function and d) experiment with small programming examples, when and wherever they get the ideas.

2. Possible/potential to use m-learning - 16 participants were not technology-

minded but would use mobile devices for learning/studying if they were travelling (to other places or around campus without their laptops), commuting, attending conferences, waiting in queues/for transport or searching for terms and ideas.

3. Not useful– 10 participants thought mobile devices would not be useful or that

they had no need for them because they a) prefer to sit down at a desk to study/learn, b) do not want to study/learn when outside dedicated studying hours, c) do not like technology and/or would prefer to handwrite or d) do not feel comfortable using a small device. Wang and Higgins (2005) reported similar findings and noted that many people lacked the psychological motivation needed for m-learning.

Views on the use of location-tracking technologies

 28 participants did not feel that the use of location-tracking technologies would be an intrusion to their privacy.

 Nine students felt that it would be an intrusion and would mind people knowing their locations because a) they would not want others to know if they were not in lectures or at work, or b) they did not want to be contactable at all. It was noted that an option must be available to switch off the location-tracking.

Relationship between learner characteristics and m-learning views

Seven characteristics of learners were collected; see the learner characteristics scale

in 3.2.1. A statistically significant strong positive correlation was found between the ‘enjoy studies’ learner characteristics and how enthusiastic they were towards m- learning, (r = 0.4327, < 0.1). This finding suggests that the more a student enjoys their studies, the more likely that they are enthusiastic about the use of mobile devices for learning/studying. Note that most of the other statistical correlations obtained between each of the learner characteristics and their views on m-learning were not significant. The qualitative data analysis also supports the obtained positive correlation as some participants whose opinions were that mobile devices would not be useful for learning or that they had no need for this learning approach because they did not want to learn/study outside dedicated studying hours, which suggests that they may enjoy studies less than other students who also study outside dedicated studying hours.

It was also revealed that whether a learner is enthusiastic towards m-learning is related to their study-related and -unrelated routines. For example, a learner who

spends most of their studying time in the library, and has access to a personal laptop computer, Internet, and book and journal resources etc, is less likely to require the need of mobile devices for learning in other environments. However, a learner who may not like or always like to study in fixed environments, such as computer laboratories or libraries, and is usually ‘on the move’ may be more likely to require a small portable device for learning/studying tasks ranging from internet browsing to making and reading lecture notes.

The majority of participants were either enthusiastic about m-learning or thought that m-learning could be potentially useful for them. The range of software applications on desktop/laptop computers participants currently use for their studies include internet browsing. Internet browsing on modern mobile devices has been made much easier through the use of larger and colour screens, and web pages are designed to fit more appropriately on mobile devices and require less scrolling. Many participants supported the idea of using mobile devices for internet browsing and for searching for terms and ideas, and would use them for these purposes. It was found that participants who regarded m-learning as not being useful include those students who do not wish to study outside dedicated studying hours. These findings tell me that a student who is interested in learning/studying and enjoys their studies, particularly outside of dedicated studying hours, would welcome mobile devices for learning more than other students. The framework is useful for university students who are interested in learning outside dedicated studying hours and in non-fixed locations. The positive correlation found between learners who ‘enjoy studies’ and their enthusiasm about m-learning further confirms this.

5.4 Summary and conclusion

In this chapter, I reported the qualitative and quantitative data analysis from the interview and diary studies respectively, relating to the learning schedule approach and determined whether this can be effectively used to retrieve learning contexts within my framework.

A limitation of the learning schedule approach is that this requires a sufficient amount of work and self-discipline on the part of the user to input and update their scheduled events into an electronic diary on a mobile device and conform to them. Therefore, I wanted to investigate the validity of such a use, and envisaged that students may use a learning schedule for time management of their studies.

My vision was corroborated - many participants who kept a diary and had closely conformed to their scheduled events were students who had self-regulatory learning characteristics. The qualitative analysis showed that the learning schedule approach can be used an as effective and accurate means of retrieving a learner’s (especially those who are self-regulated) location and available time contexts. It is not an additional burden on top of learners’ workload to keep and update a diary because many of them had used a paper- or electronic-based diary (also on mobile devices) on a regular basis.

In the second part of the chapter, I reported how a diary study has helped me to establish whether intended users could in reality plan their scheduled events, conform to the plan and keep it up-to-date. Results gained from 32 participants who performed the diary study for a period of two days showed that they were able to plan and adhere to most of their events; the actual and planned locations of all recorded events matched in particular. Some 47% of the actual and planned start and finish

times of events were matched, but there were discrepancies in the remainder of these events. These were largely due to the flexibility participants gave themselves when performing self-study activities and some were due to scheduled classes or meetings finishing earlier than recorded in the diary.

Results showed that the actual locations of participants were usually consistent with their planned locations, i.e. they usually adhered to their planned events, especially for scheduled classes and lectures. There were small discrepancies between the planned and actual start and finish times of events, of five or 10 minutes earlier and/or later than planned, with the occasional larger discrepancy of 35 minutes earlier. For self-study events, participants were in the planned locations; however, there were more and larger discrepancies between the planned and actual start and finish times. This showed that location was a simpler context to be retrieved more accurately than the available time context. There is also a higher likelihood that important events are attended to, such as revision lectures and supervisory meetings. The hypothesis shown below is supported with a rate of 100% for the location context and 70% for the available time context ((47% for batch 1 + 92% for batch 2) / 2).

H0: The location and available time can be retrieved accurately from the

learner’s diary for those events that they feel are important to them.

I conclude that two supplementary methods can be used to strengthen the framework to verify that the retrieved location and available time contexts are indeed accurate. The context values retrieved from the learner’s schedule can be used as default values. Two methods –location-tracking and user verificationare to be put in

place, to verify the location and available time respectively. GPS and wireless LAN technologies can be used to verify outdoor and indoor locations respectively. The user

is asked to verify and confirm the retrieved available time, and update this as necessary. These two methods are described in 9.2.

Chapter 6

Significant learning contexts and appropriate