Smartphones and regular cellular phones: assessing their impact on students’ education at the University of Zululand
Mobile phones are everywhere and mobile learning is emerging as a potential learning environment at the University of Zululand. The aim of the research is to assess the impact of mobile phones on students‟ learning at the University of Zululand pertinent to the study is the work by Thornton and Houser (2005) also searched the use of mobile phone capabilities to enhance Japanese students‟ learning for English lessons. The University of Zululand is dominated by black-African students, making the study focus to be based on this group. The research information was collected from this group as they are the majority population on the Campus. The study drew evidence from a structured questionnaire which was designed and distributed to postgraduate and undergraduate students in all Faculties. The median test / Wilcoxon‟s signed test rank was used to determine the objectives of the study. Further more; analysis using a chi-square test was employed for an association test between the study factors, to further determine whether there is a significant association between the students‟ opinion regarding mobile phone as a useful tool for learning the type of mobile phone the students use, and the gender of the students. Another association test was done to further determine whether there is a significant association between each mobile phone capability, the type of mobile phone the students use, and the gender of the students. Finally a binomial test was employed to determine whether there is a significant difference between the proportion of smartphone users and regular cellular phone users. The findings of the study revealed that students consider that their mobile phones are useful tools for their learning regardless of their mobile phone type and gender. Other findings were that students consider that the ability of each mobile phone capability is a useful function for their learning independent of their mobile phone type and gender. This result revealed that regular cellular phone users may have the experience of smartphone capabilities. Students contended that their mobile phones are distracting during lectures when they are in use. They preferred to use their mobile phones for learning in other environments where they viewed them as useful for learning, not during lectures. The final study findings revealed that there are many more users of smartphones at the University of Zululand than the regular cellular phone users. The researcher recommends that there is a need for higher learning institutions to incorporate the students‟ mobile phone for learning activities to enhance students‟ learning. Wellstructured and well-defined requirements for using the student mobile phone for learning are needed. A practical investigation of students‟ learning using the mobile phone is needed, and they have to be assessed for capturing the investigation results to evaluate their performance while they are learning to use their mobile phones.
Mobile phones -- University of Zululand, Mobile learning -- University of Zululand, Smartphones -- University of Zululand
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