The ship has left the harbour, but the captain is mia: Mobile adoption within higher education institutes

Abstract

Mobile technology enables access to information through a variety of transmission media, like voice, text, video, and two-dimensional barcodes, anywhere, anytime. Therefore the current students expect mobile integration for teaching and learning to be the norm at Higher Education Institutes (HEIs). The purpose of this paper was to explore students’ adoption of mobile devices for programme delivery versus the lecturers’ acceptance or resistance to investigate the use of and potential for integrating mobile technologies for authentic teaching and learning in HEIs. The study used a multi-mode research design and methodology. Data collection strategies included: (i) a survey distributed in 2014 to 207 first and second year students from the Faculties of Humanities and Economic Sciences and Information Technology at the Vaal Triangle Campus (VTC) of the North-West University, and (ii) two individual interviews with lecturers from the two faculties. The quantitative and qualitative data were analysed with the use of the Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) framework and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to predict whether the students and lecturers adopt the use of SMARTguides on tablets/iPads for authentic teaching and learning at VTC. Results indicate that students adopt mobile technologies for programme delivery; however, even though lecturers should steer the integration of mobile technologies for authentic teaching and learning, lecturers are reluctant to use SMARTguides as a teaching and learning tool due to institutional constraints, and have mixed feelings on the use of and the potential for integrating mobile technologies for programme delivery.