Mobile technology is shaping the way we live, work and learn at ACU. Since education can now take place in the classroom or virtually anywhere, we are committed to exploring mobile learning technology and research that makes sense for our students and their future. Learn more about mobile learning at ACU.
Brad Crisp
Title: Utilitarian versus Hedonic Uses of Mobile Devices in Higher Education: All Work and No Play Makes...?
Description: This research continues a longitudinal study of the Mobile Learning Initiative by surveying all incoming freshmen, sophomores, and transfers who received a device, and possibly upper classmen who have purchased their own iPhone or iPod Touch. Will administer electronic surveys in both fall and spring semesters about student expectations, usage, and outcomes that consider both utilitarian (e.g., academic) and hedonic (e.g., social and entertainment) purposes for using mobile devices. Will also collect data on students' academic and technology backgrounds, factors determining their device selection (i.e., iPhone versus iPod Touch), and device specific effects. This research is expected to contribute to ACU’s assessment of the Mobile Learning Initiative as well to educational and technology research on mobile devices.
Jamie Goff
Title: The Effects of Mobile Learning in Marriage and Family Therapy Graduate Education on Student Engagement and Course Evaluations
Description: Podcasting and course blogs will be integrated into two courses in the Department of Marriage and Family Therapy: BMFT 610: Premarital & Marital Therapy and BMFT 651: Sexual Therapy. Comparisons on course evaluations will be made between two groups of students: (1) students who took the courses in previous years when mobile learning methods were not used; and (2) students who will be taking the courses that have been enhanced with mobile learning methods during the 2009-2010 academic year. The Student Engagement Survey, a shorter version of the National Survey of Student Engagement, will also be used. Student engagement in the class of 2009, who did not participate in mobile learning initiatives, will be compared with student engagement in the classes of 2010 and 2011, who will have participated in courses using mobile learning. Student engagement will be measured at the beginning and end of the 2009-2010 academic year. Results of this research will be distributed in several forums including, but not limited to, presentations at national and regional conferences and journal articles in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy and educational technology journals.
Mark Phillips
Title: Reconfiguring an entry majors course utilizing Mobile Learning tools on regular (daily) basis
Description: To date, most of ACU’s connected learning efforts have involved the addition of one or two tools (e.g. clickers, word clouds, blogs) to an existing class. I propose to restructure an existing course from the ground up, incorporating a full array of connected learning techniques. The objective is to create a full-scale laboratory in which numerous tools can be tried and assessed for effectiveness, benefit to students and faculty, and practicality. The end result will be a detailed analysis of each tool, including strengths and weaknesses. Beyond this global assessment, the proposed format also lends itself well to assessing a variety of specific empirical research questions. For example, most existing research on Personal Response Systems (‘clickers’) has looked at students as a homogenous group, leaving questions about individual learning styles and demographic factors unanswered; this proposal could help us understand why clickers may work better for some learning styles than others. Also, students might complete some quizzes electronically and others on paper, providing a comparison for analysis of both their scores and their attitudes toward the two techniques.
Cynthia Powell
Title: Using podcasts on mobile devices to support increased student independence in inquiry-based Chemistry labs
Description: In the Fall 2008 semester I ran a pilot project in our General Chemistry labs. The curriculum was rewritten in an inquiry based format and podcasts were prepared in three categories: chemistry calculations, laboratory techniques and experiment specific information. We have collected and analyzed podcast usage and student/TA interaction data from one "iPhone" section and four "regular" sections during which podcasts were not available. Preliminary results affirm the research hypothesis, but the number of students in the iPhone section was small and limited to freshmen, raising questions about the generalizability of the results. This fall a larger portion of the General Chemistry population will have iPhones or iPod touches allowing an even numerical and classification distribution in the experimental and control groups. I will repeat the experiment with the following modifications: 1)TAs will be more thoroughly trained in the categorization of interactions, 2) we will collect interactions for individual student lab teams rather than for the sections as a whole and I will use a multilevel analysis approach in data processing, 3) I will categorize the lab experiments by level of required inquiry and use this information in data analysis and 4) I will revise the types of qualitative data that are collected.
Jennifer Shewmaker
Title: Monitoring the behavioral and academic progress of at risk-elementary students on a mobile device platform
Description: The goal of the proposed project is to extend student learning by moving student research team members out of the classroom and into the public schools to work with at-risk children while using the iPhone/iPod Touch application to enhance their learning through the research team experience. This project is proposed to develop an application for use with the iPhone/iPod Touch in order to increase the efficiency of collecting data and evaluating progress for children in academic and behavioral intervention programs. This project is aimed at developing an application that can be used across the academic setting for professionals such as school psychologists and diagnostic professionals, as well as ACU student research team members. By the end of the funding period, the investigator expects to develop the application program, including a prototype and materials necessary to implement the application and to pilot the application program in the public school setting in order to test the feasibility of the program and provide data regarding its effectiveness in collecting data and monitoring progress in academic intervention programs. The amount of daily data collected will be compared to the same project run without the application the previous year to obtain information regarding the enhancement of progress monitoring. ACU student research team members will use this data to conduct their own research regarding intervention effectiveness, which they will propose to present at undergraduate research conferences.
Autumn Sutherlin
Title: The use of clickers and electronic flashcards on the iPhone /iPod Touch in a Chemistry classroom
Description: Student handheld response systems (clickers) in various forms have been used in classrooms in an effort to increase student participation and learning. One of the issues with this technology is that there are many different clickers that are often used in various classes. This requires the students to carry and keep up with many devices. An integrated technology such as the iPhone/ iPod Touch will allow a uniform technology to be used across campus. This study is a follow-up to two previous studies, which examined the use of clickers in the chemistry classroom. This study will focus on the use of the iPhone/ iPod Touch as a clicker using TurningPoint ResponseWare and how to best use the devices to improve student achievement. This study will also employ another tool available on the iPhone/ iPod Touch, Emantras ACUmindwire,which gives the students to opportunity to download pre-made flashcards to use as a study tool for the course.
Brian Burton
Title: Collaboration with Mobile Technology at ACU
Description: Examined web hits to m.ACU through fall semester of 2008 (ACU mobile, my-mobile, packet guide, maps, and nano tools), surveyed 262 freshmen regarding the frequencies of: 1) text messaging, 2) chat/email/IM, 3) using devices to contact (or being contacted by) others about academic work, 4)providing and/or receiving help from others for academic work, and 5) types of communication with others experienced while working on academic tasks, 6)types of help provided to or received from others using mobile devices.
Key finding: The use of technology increased collaboration among college student through the use of mobile devices that enhanced communication, content accessibility, and student self reliance.
Disposition: presented at ConnectEd (02/09), paper submitted for presentation at AERA annual meeting (2010), full manuscript on teaching SDK course (coauthored with Fortune Mhlanga) submitted to Transactions in Computing Education (ACM), which is considered a tier 1 journal in his area.
Rob Byrd
Title: Mobile Device Effectiveness in Academic Environments
Description: Enhanced Moodle, a course management system which is both free and i-device friendly. Also created and open-sourced an integrated course attendance application component (plug-in module) and implemented a free generic survey tool to be used with courses or as a replacement for Zoomerang.
Key findings: Response of visitors at ConnectEd conference to manned booth was quite positive. Application development was successful. No specific research questions articulated, but ad hoc findings in mobile quiz usage suggest that quizzes are effective for studying student learning but not effective for assessment (see SWCTL paper).
Disposition: Vendor display at ConnectEd (02/09), feature article for Business Intelligence (11/08), peer-reviewed presentation at SWCTL (03/09).
Brad Crisp
Title: Is it Work or Play? Utilitarian versus Hedonic Uses of Converged Mobile Devices in Higher Education.
Description: Administered an expectation survey, usage survey, and outcomes survey in both fall and spring semesters that considered both utilitarian (e.g., academic) and hedonic (e.g., social and entertainment) purposes for using mobile devices. Also collected data on students' technology backgrounds, factors determining device selection (i.e., iPhone versus iPod Touch), and device specific effects.
Key findings: Major factors in device selection (67% chose an iPhone over an iPod Touch) include beliefs about the relative usefulness and enjoyment of the devices as well constraints related to affordability, prior contracts (over 80% of prior AT&T customers chose the iPhone), and influence of parents. Extremely positive attitude about devices and the ML program across all students over the course of the academic year. Growing differences between iPhone and iPod Touch students over the course of the academic year related to attitude, usage, and perceived impact of the program, with iPhone users reporting a more favorable experience. Social and entertainment purposes surpassed academic purposes for self-reported usage and impact.
Disposition: Presented preliminary results from the fall semester surveys in February at the 2009 international Mobile Learning Conference (Washington, D.C., 02/09) and at ACU’s ConnectEd Summit (02/09). Preliminary results from the full year were included in a later presentation at the Association for Institutional Research Forum in Atlanta, Georgia (06/09) and will be presented at EDUCAUSE this year (Denver, CO, 11/09). Invited proposal to the Handbook of Research on Mobility and Computing was accepted in July with the full manuscript due in October. Research is being repeated/expanded in 09-10.
Matt Dodd
Title: Student self-rated maturity and communication patterns with friends, parents, and teachers.
Description: The primary purpose of this study is to ascertain what influence (if any) identity status (maturity and emotional development) will have on how college freshmen use the iPhone/iPod Touch to interact with classmates, faculty, friends, and parents.
Key findings: Students who scored higher on the maturity scale were more likely to communicate and interact with parents and teachers while students self-rated as less mature reported higher levels of interaction and communication with friends.
Disposition: presented at ConnectEd (02/09), two additional conference submissions are planned for the upcoming academic year.
Cynthia Powell
Title: Using iPhones to Support Student Learning in Inquiry Based Laboratory Experiments.
Description (author Abstract from manuscript)
General chemistry laboratories can be a challenge for students with weak backgrounds in laboratory techniques and calculation methods. We produced brief podcast tutorials that covered essential laboratory topics for our students to access during the laboratory period as needed on iPhones® or iPod Touches®. The podcasts replaced the traditional laboratory lecture in one laboratory section. Data were collected on the types and numbers of interactions between the teaching assistants and students during each inquiry based laboratory session for five different sections. Our data indicate that students used the podcasts frequently and t-test results show that students in the iPhone/iPod section had to be redirected or corrected significantly fewer times than students who received the same information in a traditional lab lecture format.
Key findings: iPhone/iPod touch students (1 section) slightly outperformed non-device student sections (4) on all 5 academic performance measures which are used in assigning course grades [not statistically significant differences]. Students in the iPhone/iPod Touch section found multiple additional (unanticipated) uses for their devices in the Chemistry lab environment (flashlight, timer, periodic table, etc.) A number of demographic differences between device and non-device sections were observed (gender, classification, major),but ACT scores were virtually equivalent. Equivalent performance across sections in this highly-successful program of study is seen as a major success in terms of transition to a new learning platform (with a nearly unlimited potential for advancements) with clearly no loss of student performance and content mastery.
Disposition: presented at ConnectEd (02/09), accepted for presentation at Chemistry conference (08/09), full manuscript (5K+ word)manuscript completed (06/09), was dissertation pilot project for UNT and is being repeated/expanded in 09-10.
