Influence of smart devices on the cognition and interest of underprivileged students in smart education

Abstract

Objectives: In this study, we aim to verify the influence of smart devices on the cognition and interests in the smart education of underprivileged students. Methods/Statistical Analysis: 37 students of an elementary school were employed for the study. Those students represent an underprivileged group, in which 20 students were freely accessible to Smartphone and classified as an experimental group, while the rest 17 students were not able to use Smartphone routinely and classified as a control group. The Independent Samples t-test was performed on experimental results between the experimental and control groups, and the significance level was set at 0.05. Findings: First, resulting effects of Smartphone in underprivileged students can be analyzed that learning motivation, information literacy, problem solving, learning attitude, and self-directed learning ability were listed in the order of most-significant to least-significant. Second, the Smartphone usages in underprivileged students positively affected their interest in class based on the smart education with regard to the following variables in the order of most-significant to least-significant - speaking confidence, reading confidence, writing confidence, interest in class, listening confidence. Therefore, the Smartphone usages of underprivileged students had a positive effect on their cognition and interest in class based on the smart education. The significance of this study was like followings. First, in order to adequately provide the smart education with underprivileged students, individually tailored educational curriculum that reflect their educational environments, have to be offered. Second, the smart education shall be pursued to lessen the educational disparities and served as a national policy issue in Korea. Improvements/Applications: the smart education for underprivileged groups requires not a monolithic educational support, but a tailored educational support to improve tiered learning experiences.