Mobile Technology as a Learning Tool in the Academic Environment

  • Sidwell Sabelo Nkosi Graduate School of Business and Leadership, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
  • Rosemary Sibanda Graduate School of Business and Leadership, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
  • Ankit Katrodia Graduate School of Business and Leadership, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Keywords: M-technology; production function and students’ academic performance

Abstract

Education in South Africa is not equally accessible, and the quality of education is not the same across all educational institutions. Students from low-income societies are scoring lower marks in contrast to students from higher income societies. The influence on this is the unavailability of efficient educational resources and infrastructure. This study uses a focus group of 300 students from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) School of Economics. It attempts to examine and explain the effect of the use of mobile technology in academic activities within the school of economics at UKZN. The study divides the sample size into two groups, half is given mobile technology and the remaining group is deprived of mobile technology. The data is recorded in two educational production functions, namely Ordinary Least Squares and Logistic Regression Model. The cumulative distribution function examines the probability, in form of Logit, that a student passes economic if using mobile technology for academic activities or studying. Study findings indicate that it is imperative that institutions invest in mobile technology as their learning tool to improve throughput rate and it allows efficiency in all academic activities. Mobile technology enables students to be disciplined, effective and work ready.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Ackermann, Learning.media.mit.edu. (2016).
Baran, E. (2014). A Review of Research on Mobile Learning in Teacher Education . Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 17(4), 17-32.
Bokana, K. G. (2011). Performance of students in the college of law and management studies, UKZN: an econometric analysis. Durban: UKZN.
Creswell, J. & Clark, V. (2007). Designing and conducting mixed methods research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Dwolatzky, K. M. (2014). The information gap in higher education in South Africa, SAJHE, 584–604.
Efe, H. A. (2015). The relation between science student teachers' educational use web 2.0 technologies and their computer self-efficacy. Journal of Baltic Science Education, 142-154.
EL-Hussein, M. O. (2010). Defining Mobile Learning in the Higher Education Landscape. Educational Technology and Society, 13(3), 12-21.
Essack, U. N. (2014). Secondary school factors relating to academic success in first-year Health Science . South African Journal of Higher institution, 28(4), 1332-1343. Fathema, D. S. (2015). Expanding the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to Examine Faculty Use of Learning Management Systems (LMSs) In Higher Education Institutions. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 210-231.
Horn, P., Jansen, A. & Yu, D. (2011). Factor Explaining the Academic Success of Second-year Economics Students: An Exploratory Analysis, The South African Journal of Economics, 79(2), 202-210.
Johnson, G. M. (2015). On-Campus and Fully-Online University Students: Comparing Demographics, Digital Technology Use and Learning Characteristics. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 11-99.
Kalludi, S. P. (2015). Is Video Podcast Supplementation as a Learning Aid Beneficial to Dental Students? Journal of Clinical & Diagnostic Research, 9(12), 4-7.
Kateryna, O. V. (2015). Podcasting as the first step in m-learning implementation. NY: Education Bucharest. Kim, S. K. (2013). A development of learning widget on m-learning and e-learning environments. Behaviour & Information Technology, 32(2), 190-202. Lan, Li., Worch, Eric., Zhou, YuChun. & Aguiton, Rhonda. (2015). How and Why Digital Generation Teachers Use Technology in the Classroom: An Explanatory Sequential Mixed Methods Study, International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 9(2), 9. Maysami, V. B. (2015). An exploratory study of the effect of technology in quantitative business courses. International Journal of Education Research, 1-12.
McBride, R. (2016). [Online]
Mike, M. (2014). Factors affecting graduation and student dropout rate at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. South African Journal of Science, 110(12), 3.
Nkosi, D. L. (2012). Academic staff expectations of undergraduate students with respect to their use of the library at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg Campus. South African Journal of Libraries & Information Science, 78(1), 79-87.
Pascarella, E. T. & Terenzine, P. T. (2005). How College Affects Students: A Third Decade of Research, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Quinn, F. & Stein, S. (2013). Relationships between learning approaches and outcomes of students studying a first-year biology topic on-campus and by distance. Higher Education Research & Development, 32(4), 617-631.
Ramorola, M. Z. (2013). Challenge of effective technology integration into teaching and learning. Africa Education Review, 10(4), 654-670.
Tinto, V. (2003). Student Success and the Building of Involving Education Communities. Higher Education Monograph Series, Syracuse University.
Tucker, B. (2012). The flipped classroom, online instruction at home free class time for learning.
UKZN. (2016). [Online] Available WWW: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/docs/ukzn-registration/registration-
Vithal, N. A. (2015). Equality of exceptional academic achievement in south African higher education. South African Journal of Higher Education, 29(2), 218-236.
Yathavan, Vasuki. (2008). Analysing First-year Student Performance in the Commerce Faculty at the University of the Witwatersrand, Unpublished Masters Study, Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand.
Published
2019-05-13
How to Cite
Nkosi, S. S., Sibanda, R., & Katrodia, A. (2019). Mobile Technology as a Learning Tool in the Academic Environment. Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, 11(2(J), 92-102. https://doi.org/10.22610/jebs.v11i2(J).2823
Section
Research Paper