not interested in ict? a case study to explore how a meaningful m-learning activity fosters...

NOT INTERESTED IN ICT? A CASE STUDY TO EXPLORE

HOW A MEANINGFUL M-LEARNING ACTIVITY FOSTERS

ENGAGEMENT AMONG OLDER USERS

Patricia Santos

Mara Balestrini, Valeria Righi Josep Blat, Davinia Hernández-Leo

ECTEL 2013 – Paphos, Cyprus

Outline

I. Introduction

II. State of the art

III. Case Study

IV. Results

V. Conclusions

Not Interested in ICT? A Case Study to Explore How a Meaningful m-Learning Activity Fosters Engagement Among Older Users 2

Introduction

• M-learning + LBS mostly used in formal educational contexts

• Lack of research understanding: M-learning + Older Lifelong Learners

How should context-aware m-learning be deployed to provide

fruitful outcomes for older learners who are not familiar with ICT?

1) can m-learning in situ foster the acceptance of mobile

technologies among older people initially not interested in ICT?

2) which strategies and combinations of tools can provide an

engaging m-learning in situ experience?


State of the Art

• Previous works (Boulos et al, 2011) exploring the use of geo-positioning systems by older people have mainly focused on e-health applications

• Technology can be a source of stress among older users. However, if correctly introduced, it can be perceived as useful for improving their physical and mental health (Nycyk & Redsell, 2006)

• ICT contributes to older adults’ well-being and sense of empowerment by affecting their interpersonal interactions, promoting their cognitive functioning and contributing to their experience of control and independence (Shapira et al, 2011)


State of the Art

• Adaptation of the UTAUT (Unified Theory of Acceptance

and Use of Technology) model (Wang et al, 2009), experiment

with 330 participants, concluded that:

“performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social

influence, perceived playfulness, and self-management of

learning were all significant determinants of behavioral

intention to use m-learning… age differences moderate the

effects of effort expectancy and social influence on

mlearning use intention”


State of the art: QuesTInSitu

• The interaction context of the test had to be the city, a natural park...

Educational resources (questions) have to be associated to real positions and

distributed as a route in the physical environment

“Assessment in situ” refers to a

type of activity where the questions

of a test have to be answered in

front of a related real location (in

situ) *.

Geolocated QTI questions and

tests (routes), can be created and

learners answer the tests using a

mobile device with GPS and 3G.

* Santos, P., Pérez-Sanagustín, M., Hernández-Leo, D. & Blat, J. (2011). QuesTInSitu: From tests to routes for

assessment in situ activities. Computers & Education, 57 (4), 2517-2534. R Q1) Impact factor: 2.617


Case Study: Context

Educational context:

• Adult school that offers a variety of free courses supporting lifelong learning. The

center applies a dialogic approach empowers all the participants to have the

same rights in decision making, collaboration and co-design.

• 20 participants (60+ years old) who took part in the study were all enrolled in a

Catalan literature course. There is no teacher or instructor in the course but rather

a participant who volunteers to organize the discussion.

• Main task:

The book “La plaça del diamant” by Merçè Rodoreda was chosen ,

we asked them to come up with questions about specific facts in the

story that were related to areas of the district of Gràcia in Barcelona.


Case Study:

Research Question: how performance, effort expectancy, and

playfulness affect the participants’ m-learning acceptance?

We propose that adopting a co-design process to create and

perform the context-aware m-learning activity enhanced the m-learning

acceptance among our participants and reduced their anxiety towards

emerging and unfamiliar technologies

Goals: 1. Design and realize an m-learning in situ activity that consisted of a route of

geolocated questions based on the facts occurred in a novel that they had

previously read in a dialogic literary gathering offered by the adult school.

2. Two groups of learners complete the route in situ by answering the questions


Case Study: Activity

1. The QTIS questions were defined by the 20 participants in two co-design workshops

• Workshop 1:

Participants voluntarily were divided in two groups.

Each group think about questions for the other group.

• Workshop 2:

• Each group selects 10 questions and use iPads to decide the location of

questions

2. 11 participants (divided in two groups) participated in the mLearning activity in situ

by interacting with QuesTInSitu and smartphones


Case Study: activity in situ

Video: http://youtu.be/bBKvz9hYQ-k


http://youtu.be/bBKvz9hYQ-k



Data gathering and analysis methods

• Qualitative approach combining: participatory observations and conversations with participants

• Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) extracting the main themes from the data corpus Three themes: i) Progressive engagement with device, ii) Meaningfulness of the activity,

iii) Collaborative involvement


Activity Type of data

Co-design

workshops

• Videos during the workshops (workshop 1 and workshop 2).

• Fieldnotes of 3 researchers’ observations and conversations with

participants during the activity

Activity-in-situ • Videos during the QuesTInSitu route.

• Fieldnotes of 4 researchers’ observations and conversations with

participants during the activity

• Questionnaire post activity

Debriefing • Fieldnotes of 3 researchers’ observations and conversations with

participants

Main Results

I - Progressive Engagement with the Technology

1. Participants initially refused to interact with the devices (i.e. mobiles

phone in the activity in-situ, iPad in the co-design workshop)

suggesting that their performance and effort expectancy was

negative.

2. When the mobile devices were entering in the activity in a natural

way, participants were no longer disturbed by their presence.

3. Users were so engaged (playfulness) in the activity that they

started to interact with the technology “naturally”.

4. Social influence is an important factor that has to be considered

when engaging older learners in m-learning.


Main Results

II - Meaningfulness of the activities Supported by ICT 1. The increased acceptance of the technology was directly related with the

strong emotional involvement in the activity perceiving it as a playful

educational experience.

2. The use of prompts & location information engages the participants to

observe the physical space, improves their knowledge about the district

visited and the association of the real world with the questions augments

their point of view about the novel.

3. Participants reported that the context-aware m-learning activity allowed

them to deepen their understanding of the story, and have a more realistic

view of the scene.

4. Paper-map was a useful complementary instrument to have a global view

of the district that they had to explore


Main Results

III - Collaborative involvement

1. Collaborative involvement in the co-design of the context-aware m-

learning activity encouraged participants’ engagement and fostered

participants’ acceptance of m-learning and LBS

2. When participants become familiar with the m-learning activity, their

outcome expectations–performance and self-efficacy improves and

their anxiety is reduced.

3. Despite the fact that only one person in each group carried the

smartphone, all the members of the team were engaged in the

activity and collaborated in the tasks


Conclusions

Participants’ performance and effort expectancy improved after doing the activity.

Participants found m-learning useful and meaningful because it enabled them to accomplish learning activities putting in practice (in the real world) their knowledge by doing a playful activity.

The use of mobile devices and LBS allowed them to augment the knowledge that they previously had about the book.

The QuesTInSitu route mediated by smartphones was a successful activity since participants were immersed finding questions, answering them in the correct place and completing the routes.

The scenario and findings discussed in this paper contribute to the limited existing body of knowledge around m-learning and older users.

With further results, it will be possible to propose good practices for lifelong learning applying context-aware m-learning for older users.


Not Interested in ICT? A Case Study to Explore How a

Meaningful m-Learning Activity Fosters Engagement

Among Older Users 16

QUESTIONS?

THANK YOU!

Patricia Santos

[email protected]

LinkedIn: uk.linkedin.com/pub/patricia-santos-rodriguez/54/207/a97/

GTI: http://gti.upf.edu

Not Interested in ICT? A Case Study to Explore How a Meaningful m-Learning Activity Fosters Engagement Among Older Users

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not interested in ict? a case study to explore how a meaningful m-learning activity fosters...

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