FACTORS THAT MAY CONTRIBUTE TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF MOBILE LEARNING IN INSTITUTIONS RESULTS FROM A SURVEY Factors That May Contribute to the Establishment of Mobile Learning in Institutions – Results From a Survey O. Zawacki-Richter 1 , T. Brown 2 , R. Delport 3 1 University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany 2 Midrand Graduate Institute, Midrand, South Africa 3 University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa Abstract—This paper reports on a survey investigating the role that differences in expectations and perceptions of mobile learning and mobile devices play in establishing mobile learning at an educational institution, Responses from institutions with no institutional plans for mobile learning and others that do plan or currently have developed mobile learning programmes were compared. Various factors that may contribute to the establishment of mobile learning in educational institutions were therefore also investigated. These factors include, amongst other, expectations concerning the impact of mobile technologies on teaching and learning, and perceptions concerning mobile learning applications and mobile learning activities. Index Terms—distance education, education innovation, mobile learning, mLearning, mobile devices, Introduction TABLE I NUMBERS OF RESPONDENTS FROM DIFFERENT COUNTRIES Country Responses Country Responses Albania 1 Israel 1 Australia 2 Lativa 1 Austria 1 Malta 1 Barbados 1 Mexico 1 Canada 9 Netherlands 3 Colombia 2 Norway 1 Cyprus 1 Portugal 1 Finland 1 Romania 1 France 1 South Africa 15 Georgia 1 Sweden 1 Germany 15 Switzerland 1 Great Britain 8 Turkey 2 Hungary 1 USA 12 Ireland 3 Total 88 I. II. III. A. INTRODUCTION Ellen Wagner, Director, Global Education Solutions, Macromedia, proclaimed “2005 is the year that mobile learning comes of age. Mobile learning brings a true ‘anytime, anywhere’ dimension to e-learning. Mobile learning will feature smart phones and personal communicators, while continuing to link learners with resources via laptop, notebook and tablet computers in a variety of physical settings”[1]. Whether this has indeed become current reality needs to be investigated. An international survey was recently conducted which sought to explore current expectations of mobile learning for distance education. It was distributed within various professional distance education networks and was also sent to faculty and alumni of the Master of Distance Education programme at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) in the U.S. The main findings have been reported [2]. METHOD This paper reports on further analysis of the survey results, investigating the role that differences in expectations and perceptions of mobile learning and mobile devices play in establishing mobile learning at an educational institution. Responses from institutions with no institutional plans for mobile learning and others that do plan or currently have developed mobile learning programmes were compared. Various factors that may contribute to the establishment of mobile learning in educational institutions were therefore also investigated. These factors include, amongst other, expectations concerning the impact of mobile technologies on teaching and learning, and perceptions concerning mobile learning applications and mobile learning activities. The following objectives were set for this study: • To evaluate expectations of respondents from institutions with no institutional plans for developing course materials for use on mobile devices and respondents from other institutions that plan or currently have developed mobile learning programmes concerning the impact of mobile technologies on teaching and learning, • To evaluate perceptions concerning mobile learning applications and mobile learning activities, and • To identify envisaged constraints (weaknesses of mobile devices) that might hinder the distribution of mobile learning. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS Demographics Eighty-eight responses were received from 27 countries. Table I provides information on the countries of origin and the number of respondents, while Table II presents information on the number of responses from all partaking higher education institution types. The highest percentage of respondents (59%) was from institutions that offer both face-to-face (contact-based) and distance learning programmes (mixed-mode institutions). iJIM – International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies – www.i-jim.org 1