Supporting the Learning and Teaching of a Practical-Based Course using Mobile Phone Technology

Abstract

The impact of mobile technology across various domains cannot be overemphasized. Mobile technology is
revolutionizing the education sector, as students can now access the classroom and diverse learning resources
from the comfort of their home using mobile phones. However, there is still a lot of gaps in the way mobile phones
can be leveraged on to learn practical-based courses that require hands-on or laboratory work. This is because
mobile phones are often constrained by the processor capability, small screen size and keypad. In this study, the
concept of bit-sized learning was explored to support how practical-based learning can be driven on mobile
phones. Consequently, an experiment/intervention was set up for 30 days. Results from the experiment show that
students who used the full intervention improved in their learning with an average score of 66.67% with a standard
deviation of 11.14. Those who didn’t use or partially used the intervention had an average score of 51.18% with
standard deviation of 15.63. Post experiment analysis was further carried out to understand users’ experience with
the use of mobile phone for practical-based learning. Results from this analysis show that mobile phone provides
a platform for accessibility and flexibility in learning of a practical based course such as programming.