Identifying User ’s Perceptions Toward Integrating Mobile Applications in Science Education

Abstract

Situated under the macro-context of the Korean government’s initiative to provide mobile- and cloud-based learning resources in schools, the goal of this study is to examine potential users’ perceptions toward integrating mobile applications in science education. The sample includes 632 students, 68 teachers and 141 parents fro m 11 Primary schools in Korea. Results reveal some important implications regarding users’ acceptance of mobile applications for teaching and learning. First, the majority of students do not frequently access and use mobile devices, which might be associated with the school policy to ban or limit the use of mobile devices in the classroom. This finding may imply a conflict between the enacted macro-level policy and the reality of schools. Second, the teacher group is the most conservative in their perceptio ns toward integrating mobile applications in science education. Teachers’ conservative attitude may be associated with the lack of perceived advantages of using mobile applications in teaching and learning. Lastly, there was a clear pattern observed in users’ perceptions about science topics that are effective or ineffective in integrating mobile applications. Science phenomena that require a long duration of observation were perceived to be highly relevant to integrate mobile applications, supporting the continuity of observation experiences across physical contexts and time scale. Further, we found that mobile applications that provoke students’ imaginations and curiosity, where students do not feel forced to learn, but are intrinsically motivated to learn ing science in daily life, are likely to be readily accepted and used by student users.