Does Mobile Learning Foster Self-Directed Learning?

Abstract

With the ever-evolving educational technology trends, distance learning is now able to provide tremendous opportunities of learning that were barely possible before. Despite that, distance education institutions are still continuing the battle with one of their most challenging issue, which is high learner dropout. There is a notion that learners will be more successful and less prone to dropout when their learning is self-directed (Uba, 1997). Recently, research showed that mobile learning encouraged learners to be self-directed and there was a substantial decline in dropouts (Attewell, Savill-Smith, Douch, 2009). This paper is a further effort to investigate the potential of mobile learning to support self-directed learning and aims to highlight the effect of mobile learning using short messaging services (SMS) on learners’ self-direction for learning. In the study, SMS text messages were sent to mobile phones of science teachers who were undertaking the Bachelor of Teaching Program at Open University Malaysia. Data was collected using survey questionnaire as well as interview method whereby 35 participants responded to the questionnaire and two were interviewed. The assessment of self-directed learning was based on the theories of self-directed learning suggested by Brockett and Hiemstra (1991) and Candy (1991). The findings show how learners exhibited ownership of learning due to mobile learning through their goals and plans for learning, strategies and processes of learning and self-evaluation of their learning. The study also discusses issues that these teachers faced when using mobile technologies for self-directed learning. (Abstract by authors