An Analysis Of Utilization Of Mobile Cellphones, Students’ Learning Environment And Students' Performance Outcome İn Higher Education
Abstract
The cellphone is at the epicenter of a major technological revolution in today's digital culture, one that is having far reaching
effects across many fields. Students’ utilization of cellphone has been a topic of study in institutions of higher learning.
Previous research on the topic of students' utilization of cellphone and academic performance has largely concentrated on
quantifying the effect that students' cellphone use has on their academic performance. The goal of this research is to determine
whether or not gender differences and prior exposure to a certain social interactions and learning environment have a role in
the adoption of cellphones for educational purposes. A standardized self-report questionnaire was used to gather data from
347 first year students and 254 final year students of the Federal Polytechnic, Ado Ekiti, Nigeria (FPA). Our research is
motivated by a desire to answer the following questions about how the utilization of cellphone by students affects their
academic performance. Firstly, to investigate the pattern of the utilization of cellphone amongst the students’ genders for
academic purposes. Secondly, to explore how much of an impact the learning environment has on students' cellphone use in
order to improve their academic performance outcome and thirdly how much of an impact the utilization of cellphone has on
students' overall academic performance. In conclusion, we believe that a student's decision to use a smartphone for education
tasks, partly depends on the student's level of comfort in and understanding of the numerous settings that comprise his or her
learning environment. To better understand how students perceive cellphone use, and how that perception influences their
academic performance results, we recommend using a range of data gathering methodologies for future study on the association
between cellphone utilization and academic performance of students.
