Perceived Effects of Smartphone Usage on Students’ Attitude Towards Learning in a Health Institution

Abstract

Globally, the current advancement in technological gadgets has provided smartphones as a new tool for both teachers and students to support classroom and off classroom learning. This has led to the call for its integration into the educational system of health training schools in Ghana. The researchers studied health trainees' perception on the effects smartphone usage has on their attitudes towards learning. This study was grounded on the views of constructivist theory of learning. A descriptive cross sectional study design was adopted. Among 614 health trainees studying various medical and allied health courses at the College of Health-Yamfo of Ghana, 138 students were selected using both stratified and systematic sampling methods. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the data. The outcome of the study indicated that health trainees who use smartphones in their learning activities develop positive attitude towards learning (76%). However, it was revealed that health trainees who do not use smartphones in their learning activities had negative attitude towards learning (57%). They were also not confident; did not complete assignments; depended on others during studies and did not have access to large volume of information via the internet. Finally, chatting through WhatsApp and other social media applications during lectures and small screen size were barriers to effective use of smartphone in learning activities. The study recommends development of policy that would encompass the integration of smartphone usage into teaching curriculum of health training schools in Ghana.

Smartphone Use and Academic Performance of University Students: A Mediation and Moderation Analysis

“…The results of this research further exhibit that attitude exerts an affirmative and significant influence between functions of smartphone and university students' academic performance, which shows similar findings of previous literature [16,42,[106][107][108]. Outcomes of moderation of addiction exhibit the significant influence between functions of smartphone and students' academic performance in universities as the outcome variable [8,10,12,16,18,33]. Finally, the moderating variable such as technology plays a significant influence between functions of smartphone and university students' academic performance, previous literature also exhibited similar outcomes such as García-Martínez et al [14], Qi [25], Hossain et al [26], Chen and Chang [90], Saroha and Diwan [91], Rout and Samarpita [92], McGill and Klobas [96], and Aljomaa et al [97].…”

“…Previous literature also demonstrated similar results [10,17,[76][77][78][79]. The results of this research further exhibit that attitude exerts an affirmative and significant influence between functions of smartphone and university students' academic performance, which shows similar findings of previous literature [16,42,[106][107][108]. Outcomes of moderation of addiction exhibit the significant influence between functions of smartphone and students' academic performance in universities as the outcome variable [8,10,12,16,18,33].…”

“…The results of the undertaken study demonstrate the smartphone affirmative influence on student academic performance in universities; the previous literature also exhibited similar outcomes [25][26][27][28][29]. Outcomes also demonstrating that the multimedia media messaging (MMS) has an affirmative influence on student academic performance in universities, this also confirms the results of research studies that were carried out by Hasan et al [15], Dzamesi et al [16], Lepp et al [29], Rosen et al [31], and Junco [34]. Outcomes of the undertaken study further exhibit that smartphones' applications also exerted an affirmative influence on student academic performance in university students.…”

“…The authors found that technology positively enhances student learning and performance. Warp-speed processing is imperative for rich media such as audio and video [16,18,22,63,64]. Internet speed is also paramount for download speed; the bandwidth is responsible for the higher download speed.…”