ABSTRACT
Mobile learning in higher education is relatively new and has only been studied over the last 15 years. The outcomes of the existing literature (2007–22) are scattered in several directions: Self-Regulated Learning (SRL), Open Educational Practices (OEP), and Open Educational Resources (OER). During the COVID-19 pandemic, educational institutions were forced to adopt mobile learning strategies when schools, colleges and universities were closed. The authors have established what they term the A6 use metric to measure students’ and teachers’ performance in higher education based on their experiences and observations of: (i) Accessibility – representing the capacity of network technology; (ii) Affordability – representing the cost of ownership of smartphones/tablets; (iii) Adoptability – representing the individual's buying, downloading, installing, and starting to learn and use; (iv) Adaptability – representing the individual who needs to be able to deal with the unexpected and that which is beyond their experience; (v) Acceptability – representing individualistic acceptance and use of new technology; (vi) Appropriateness – referring to the course design model. The results showed that the majority of the participants (90%) had used their smartphones in an online learning situation. It indicated that three-quarters of the participants (75%) adapted and adopted well in terms of using their smartphones/tablets for learning and teaching. The reasons given included that they could save time and money by traveling to the campus. However, the disadvantages were the unexpected disruption of unstable networks, and the screen size of the smartphones/tablets that was rather small compared to their laptops. The reluctance to download the required reading materials for students was due to the limited memory of their smartphones or if the files were too large. Furthermore, half of the participants (50%) considered the online learning environment to be the same as the real classroom setting. Future research may involve building a new meta-verse classroom with the use of virtual reality and augmented reality sets to facilitate mobile learning and teaching pedagogy that will be employed in the context of a subject area within the Department of Multimedia Design at National Formosa University in Taiwan.
