Motivation, psychology and language effect on mobile learning in Universiti Sains Malaysia

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the motivation, psychology and language effect on Mobile learning in the School of Distance Education, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang. Mobile learning or m-learning is a new learning phenomenon in the open and distance learning environments. Moving from stationary to mobile learning allows informal collaboration and interaction between learners. Therefore, there is a necessity to revise people's psychological factors, process and mechanisms that underlie Mlearning so that the practice can move from technologycentred implementation to human-centred effective learning processes. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) Version 12.0 and Rasch Model Analysis was used to measure these items. The 5-point Likert scale questionnaires (12 items) being sent to 105 distance education students from four courses including Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Social Science and Bachelor of Management which was distributed in tutorial sessions during the annual residential intensive course in the main campus of the Universiti Sains Malaysia by their respective course managers. The finding shows that a positive response from the learners as they feel happy to use this additional learning tools (mobile learning). Learner's feel supported and motivated to use the mobile application with the usability of simple language.