Factors Influencing Smartphone Usage for Academic Purposes by Undergraduate Students

Abstract

The introduction of the mobile phone, technically known as feature phones in the latter part of the 20th century, lifestyles have incredibly changed. The evolution of smartphones has absolutely transformed lifestyles and social interactions globally where it can be seen that smartphone usage and ownership is incrementally rising. The smartphone has had an enormous effect on the higher education industry and students’ lifestyles where in this study 58.8% of students mentioned that in future, higher education will highly depend on smartphones. The study emphasized on the impact of attitude of student, lecturer encouragement, and peer influence on the smartphone usage for academic purpose by undergraduate students. Further the research tried to evaluate whether there are any differences in smartphone usage for academic purposes in terms of demographic factors. A quantitative questionnaire survey was conducted at a leading private higher educational institute in Kandy which consisted of 119 respondents. The collected data was subjected to descriptive and inferential statistics. It is concluded all the independent variables have significant relationship with smartphone usage for academic purpose by undergraduate students. Statistics revealed that there wasn’t a significant difference in the terms of smartphone usage by demographic factors. Based on the research findings the following recommendations were made: Higher education institutes inculcate smartphone compatible study techniques, lecturers and students need to ensure that the smartphone is used productively during a lecture session, the lecturer should ensure that the e-material they share could be easily accessed through smartphones, the academic administration must instruct the use of smartphones during lectures for academic activities, it is also recommended that lecture material to be given in smartphone compatible formats