Students' readiness and perceptions towards mobile learning and their acceptance in adopting mobile learning platform as learning tool and communication tool

Abstract

Mobile Learning is the current technology that has become more and more popular nowadays. Mobile Learning is a type of learning across contexts and learning using small, portable and wireless computing devices like PDA (Personal Digital Assistance) and smart phone. The purpose of this research is to collect data from postgraduates about Mobile Learning and to develop a local context mobile accessible learning webpage. The first stage survey is to investigate the readiness and perceptions of postgraduates towards the Mobile Learning. This quantitative method was constructed by using a set of questionnaire which involves 63 respondents from Educational Technology Course, Faculty of Education. Results indicated that most of the postgraduates are ready to use mobile device especially in searching information through the online browser (mean value= 4.43). Besides that, results also showed that they have a positive perceptions towards Mobile Learning especially when they agree that learners can get the latest information through it (mean value= 4.44). A Mobile Learning environment (Mobile Moodle) which is connected with Learning Management System (LMS) was developed based on the postgraduates’ preferred activities. Second stage survey which is Mixed-Method survey was carried out to examine the postgraduates’ acceptance in adopting mobile learning as an additional learning tool and communication tool. A set of questionnaires and interview sheet were used in collecting data. The research’s results had signified that the acceptance among postgraduates are high especially on the benefit of Mobile Learning which allows learner to access lecture materials anywhere and anytime (mean value= 5.00). In addition, results also indicated that postgraduates prefer to carry out communication with lecturer by using Mobile Learning environment (mean value= 4.71). Lastly, refering to Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) the research results showed that Mobile Learning environment’s usefulness (mean value= 4.08) and the ease of use (mean value= 4.06) are the main concerns considered by postgraduates.