Use of mobile phones in the classroom by college students and their perceptions in relation to gender: A case study in china

Abstract

—This study investigates the uses of mobile phone in the classroom and compares the attitudes of students in different genders towards the use of mobile phones in a Chinese university, to explore the influence of gender. The mixed research strategy was adopted to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. One hundred fifty-three undergraduates from a university in southwest China participated in the survey through questionnaires, and nine of them were interviewed in groups. The results indicated that there was no difference between men and women in their uses of mobile phones in the classroom and attitudes. However, girls were more likely than boys to use the affordances of content generation and education of mobile phones. The results showed that mobile phones were minimally used in education. Implications are presented for guiding students’ use of mobile phones to assist the classroom learning. Suggestions for future research are provided.