Evaluating m-learning in Saudi Arabian higher education: a case study

Nowadays, mobile devices have become increasingly a part of education for those who study or teach at the university level and school levels. The support of electronic learning (e-learning) is essential to making mobile learning (m-learning) successful. This paper presents a study that applies m-learning to a course at Qassim University, where 100 students attended during the academic year 2014, including summer courses. The study aims to demonstrate that m-learning provides students with the ability to engage in reflective thinking, to share information among peers and to facilitate the construction of social knowledge. 90 student questionnaires were filled correctly, remaining 10 had various anomalies and thus were not considered. The study also aims to demonstrate that learning provides methods for education strategies to be easily and rapidly applied. Such strategies include team work, time management, etc. In order to judge the feasibility of applying m-learning widely, a questionnaire was developed. The results indicate that m-learning helps make the process of education more convenient than in the past. A major disadvantage of applying m-learning is inadequate wireless network bandwidth.