An Evaluation of the Learning Effectiveness of Concept Map- Based Science Book Reading via Mobile Devices

Printed books have long been an important means for people to obtain knowledge; nevertheless, educators have pointed out problems of learning from some printed books, in particular, the lack of learning supports, such as supplementary materials and learning guiding tools. In this study, a concept map-oriented ubiquitous learning approach is proposed for supporting printed science book reading activities for children via mobile devices with QR-code facilities. A quasi-experiment has been conducted in an elementary school to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, in which 92 sixth graders participated. The experimental results show that the concept map-oriented ubiquitous learning approach is significantly more helpful to the students in reading printed books than traditional book reading and the conventional ubiquitous learning approach in terms of learning achievements; moreover, the students had a high level of acceptance of such a mobile technology-assisted learning system in terms of “ease of use”, “usefulness” and "attitude and intention of future use.”