Medical students’ attitudes and perceptions of mobile learning

Abstract

The rapid development of information and communication technology has changed individual’s lifestyles and learning habits. As an advanced form of distance learning and e-learning, mobile learning has appeared. The new type of learning became pervasive rapidly owing to its intrinsic trait: mobility. The current study aims to investigate mobile learning adoption in the University of Hong Kong, the participants are from clinical programs, Chinese medicine programs and nursing programs. Three main research questions are addressed: students’ daily usage of mobile device, professional usage of mobile device, relationships between variables in the extended version technology acceptance model, which is a trustworthy model in information technology field. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used to collect data, data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation test and multi-regression test. The study found generally, students use mobile devices for entertainer purposes most frequently. Although students from different programs conduct different learning activities, there is no significant difference except the clinical students tend to possess more diversified information needs and explore more potential of the mobile devices. Contradicted to clinical students, Chinese medicine students report lower frequency in both daily usage and professional usage of mobile device. The author tested hypothesis proposed based on technology acceptance model and the results prove consistent with the previous research.