Using Mobile Device for Learning: From Students’ Perspective

This study aims to examine students’ acceptance of mobile technology usage for learning. A questionnaire designed with five open-ended questions was distributed to 20 students from the Faculty of Industrial Art and Design Technology of Unisel (Universiti Industri Selangor), Malaysia. Results construes that students were not keen on m-learning (mobile learning), as they did not rely greatly on the mobile phone in assessing their learning materials such as lectures and lab sessions. They were more familiar with studio-based and face-to-face learning approach instead of m-learning and were not receptive to this new idea of learning using mobile technology, even though they always used the mobile device features. The limitations in the mobile device feature, costs and its usability become the prominent factors that hinder the students from fully accomplishing their m-learning exercises. They were willing to explore the idea of using mobile technology for learning, especially in a studio-based setting. They did not see any improvement of knowledge from the perspective of the learning process know-how to the show-how on mobile technology usage for learning. They could not relate to any learning connection between mobile technology and studio-based learning, even though in the first part of the case study, the results have shown positive attitude and acceptance on the study made on a sample lesson of form, space and gestalt theory in the graphic design subject. Students also obtained analogous experiences on small size keypads, screen resolutions, and navigation which could be the major problematic factors to them and thus, affected their m-learning process as it was unfriendly to use and the device was prone to damage. They have yet to accept that the concept of mobility in learning is applicable to the learning process, apart from utilising a mobile device for casual usage. However, this limitation does not restrict the students from exploring this new learning environment in the future, since they were willing to increase their learning exposure using mobile device.