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A framework for mobile learning in international contexts
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Rehman, Mohammed (2020) A framework for mobile learning in international contexts. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b3685630
Abstract
This study aims to understand how undergraduate students across three cultural contexts use mobile phones as part of their learning, in order to identify differences and similarities in terms of their lived experiences of using these devices. A review of the literature identifies a range of definitions of mobile learning, as well as the predominantly positivist focus of studies to date that examine mobile learning interventions from a technological perspective. Adopting an interpretivist stance, this study uses the phenomenographic research approach to understand participants’ descriptions of mobile learning, conducting interviews in Japan, the UK and China with students at three higher education institutions.
The findings are presented as three outcome spaces, one for each cultural context, highlighting how conceptions of mobile learning can be organised with increasing hierarchical complexity within each of the three contexts, moving from accessing resources at the lowest level to collaboration at the highest level. Across the three contexts there are differences in terms of formal and informal communication, attitudes towards distraction and the positioning of students as either individual learners or as part of a collective, with a variety of tools used for communication and collaboration. There is evidence of the influence of cultural context on how and where mobile phones are used, such that different aspects of the phenomenon of mobile learning are foregrounded across the three sets of participants.
The findings suggest that there needs to be an understanding of the importance of cultural context when considering how and where mobile phones are used as part of learning. Educators and educational institutions should conduct more research into how they can integrate students’ culturally mediated behaviours and expectations of use with regards to mobile phones into their teaching and educational practice.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
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Subjects: | L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA76 Electronic computers. Computer science. Computer software |
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Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Mobile communication systems in education, Educational technology, Education, Higher -- Japan, Education, Higher -- Great Britain, Education, Higher -- China | ||||
Official Date: | June 2020 | ||||
Dates: |
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Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
Theses Department: | Department of Computer Science | ||||
Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Joy, Mike | ||||
Format of File: | |||||
Extent: | v-xv, 233 leaves : illustrations | ||||
Language: | eng |
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