Learning About Mobile Learning: Pre-Service Teachers’ Perspectives

Abstract

This exploratory research project characterised the degree of adoption of mobile learning devices among 149 fourth year pre-service teachers (PST) studying education. It also examined the impact of perceptions about possibilities and constraints in the adoption of mobile devices in schools. The findings reveal that pre-service teachers were generally at the fourth of a six-stage continuum of technological adoption that can be characterized as familiarity and confidence which was one level higher than academic staff. Some of those constraints appear to reside on equity issues, lack of mobile learning support resources, pedagogically unproductive use of mobile tools and student distractedness. Gender did not have a major impact on participants’ opinions but access to a mobile tablet did.