The use of mobile learning in higher education: A systematic review

Highlights

• The majority of the studies focused on the impact of mobile learning on student achievement.

• Language instruction was the most often researched subject matter domain.

• Of the studies, 74% involved undergraduate students.

• Of the studies, 54% took place in a formal educational context.

Abstract

Mobile device ownership has exploded with the majority of adults owning more than one mobile device. The largest demographic of mobile device users are 18–29 years old which is also the typical age of college attendees. This systematic review provides the scholarly community with a current synthesis of mobile learning research across 2010–2016 in higher education settings regarding the purposes, outcomes, methodologies, subject matter domains, educational level, educational context, device types and geographical distribution of studies. Major findings include that the majority of the studies focused on the impact of mobile learning on student achievement. Language instruction was the most often researched subject matter domain. The findings reveal that 74% involved undergraduate students and 54% took place in a formal educational context. Higher education faculty are encouraged to consider the opportunity to expand their learning possibilities beyond the classroom with mobile learning.

Introduction

Mobile devices have spread at an unprecedented rate in the past decade and 95% of the global population live in an area covered by a mobile-cellular network (ITU, 2016). Device ownership has exploded with the majority of adults owning more than one mobile device (Statista, 2016). The largest demographic of mobile device users is 18–29 year olds (Pew, 2017; Poushter, 2016) which is also the typical age of college attendees. Recent empirical evidence indicates that mobile learning can be used to support students’ learning in higher education settings (Ke & Hsu, 2015; Wu, Wu, Chen, Kao, Kin & Huang, 2012).

However, research in mobile learning has been fragmented and idiosyncratic and based on the understanding of the individual researcher (Alrasheedi, Capretz, & Raza, 2015). Pimmer, Mateescu, and Grohbiel (2016), report “after more than 20 years of mobile learning research, there is still relatively little systematic knowledge available, especially regarding the use of mobile technology in higher education settings” (p. 492). Therefore, the purpose of this systematic review is to provide the scholarly community with a current synthesis of mobile learning research in higher education settings.

Mobile Learning is a term to denote learning involving the use of a mobile device. The term is fully defined as “learning across multiple contexts, through social and content interactions, using personal electronic devices” (Crompton, 2013a, p. 4.). This definition provides insight to the educational affordances of learning with mobile devices, as learning is untethered, happening across contexts, time, subjects, people, and technologies (Crompton, 2013a; Laurillard, 2007; Traxler, 2010). Mobile devices, such as mobile phones and tablets, have a prompt off/on button and are easily portable, (Crompton, 2013b), following this definition, laptops were excluded from this study.

Several reviews of mobile learning have been conducted across the past ten years. Each contributed important information for scholars to better understand the use of mobile devices in educational settings. Some of these reviews were research that did not identify the educational setting in which the studies took place. The researchers reported their findings without describing the educational level of the learners. Frohberg, Goth, and Schwabe (2009) conducted a review of 102 mobile learning projects to analyze the context, tools, control, communication, subject and objective of each study. Wingkvist and Ericsson (2011) reviewed 114 papers from the World Conference on Mobile Learning (mLearn) focusing on reserch purposes and methods.

Some reviewers have focused exclusively on k-12 educational settings. Liu et al. (2014) reviewed k-12 mobile learning articles from 2007 to 2012, investigating academic areas, research purposes, methods and outcomes. Crompton, Burke, & Gregory (2017) reviewed 113 studies which took place in pk-12 settings, investigating research purposes, methods, and outcomes. In addition, they investigated subject matter domains, educational levels and contexts, types of mobile devices, geographic distribution and learning theories.

Some researchers have specifically identified multiple educational settings in their reviews. Hwang and Tsai (2011) reviewed K-12, higher education and adult learner mobile learning articles from 2001 to 2010. They reported subject areas, grade level, and countries where the studies took place. Wu et al. (2012) reviewed K-12, higher education and adult learner mobile learning articles from 2003 to 2010. They investigated research purposes, methods, outcomes. Sung, Chang, and Liu (2016) analyzed 110 studies published from 1993 to 2013 which took place in k-12, higher ed and adult settings. They investigated the overall effect of using mobile devices in education. Chee, Yahaya, Ibrahim and Hassan (2017) reviewed 114 articles in k-12 and higher ed settings investigating longitudinal trends from 2010 to 2015.

All of these studies add to the scholarly understanding on the use of mobile learning across all grades and subjects. However, it is not easy to parse out what is specifically happening in higher education to understand how the devices are supporting learners in those settings.

A few researchers (viz., Alrasheedi et al., 2015; Kaliisa & Picard, 2017; Pimmer et al., 2016) have conducted more granular reviews with a focus on higher education. However, these reviews narrowed the focus further to only cover certain aspects of higher education. Alrasheedi et al. (2015) studied critical factors that impact mobile learning implementation. Using Rogers’ diffusion of innovations theory (Rogers, 2003), Alrasheedi et al. (2015) reviewed 30 studies from 2005 to 2013. Their analysis identified 14 critical factors which strongly impact mobile learning implementation. Their findings showed that the most critical factor for success was whether or not students perceived that their productivity was increased by using mobile learning. They also found that students were fairly satisfied with the usage of mobile learning in their courses and were interested in using mobile learning in the future.

Pimmer et al. (2016) analyzed 36 studies from 2000 to 2013 to uncover how mobile learning is used in higher education in relation to existing learning theories. Their research indicated that instructionism, rooted in the concept of behaviorism, was the most prevalent educational design. Kaliisa and Picard (2017) conducted a study examining various characteristics, such as type of device, instructor's and student's perceptions, methodologies, and theoretical frameworks. This study was narrow in focus as it only included studies conducted in Africa. All of these studies are valuable; however, they only show limited aspects of mobile learning in higher education.

This lack of extant literature is consistent with Pimmer et al.'s (2016) claim that there is little systematic knowledge available regarding the use of mobile learning in higher education settings. With this identified gap in academic understanding, the purpose of this systematic review is to provide a comprehensive, up-to-date (2010–2016) review of mobile learning in higher education from multiple countries. This review was guided by the overarching question, what research has been conducted using mobile learning in higher education from 2010 to 2016? This question is broken into three sub questions:

• What were the major research purposes, methodologies and outcomes in studies of mobile learning in higher education?

• What were the subject matter domains, educational levels and educational contexts in the studies of mobile learning in higher education settings?

• Which mobile devices were used and what was the geographical distribution of the studies of mobile learning in higher education settings?