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Title
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Learner perspectives on learning using smartphones
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Creator
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Sawaya, Sandra Fady
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Date
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2015
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Collection
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Electronic Theses & Dissertations
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Description
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Over the past decade, research on the use of mobile devices for learning has seenincredible growth. Researchers and teachers alike have capitalized on the affordances ofthese devices and used them as tools for learning (e.g., Kearney, Schuck, Burden, &Aubusson, 2012; Kukulska-Hulme & Shield, 2008). Mobile devices, however, arepersonal devices and it is likely that individuals use them for learning in unique ways thatbest suits their needs. In addition, it follows that these individuals would...
Show moreOver the past decade, research on the use of mobile devices for learning has seenincredible growth. Researchers and teachers alike have capitalized on the affordances ofthese devices and used them as tools for learning (e.g., Kearney, Schuck, Burden, &Aubusson, 2012; Kukulska-Hulme & Shield, 2008). Mobile devices, however, arepersonal devices and it is likely that individuals use them for learning in unique ways thatbest suits their needs. In addition, it follows that these individuals would also have aunique understanding of learning using mobile devices. According to Cochrane (2013)and Traxler and Vosloo (2014) the learner perspective on the use of mobile devices inlearning has not been adequately examined.The purpose of this study was to contribute to the growing field of mobilelearning and shed light on the learner perspective on the use of these devices for learning;specifically, the use of smartphones for learning. To do so, this study followed aphenomenographic approach, focusing on revealing participants’ use of smartphones forlearning and their understanding of this phenomenon by examining their experiences ofusing their devices for learning (Marton & Booth, 1997).This qualitative study provided an in-depth look at the phenomenon of learningusing smartphones from the perspective of learners. Questionnaires were sent out to arandom sample of students at a large Midwestern university. These were used todetermine how individuals used their smartphones for learning. In addition, follow-up,Smartphones and Learning Sawaya semi-structured interviews were conducted with a subset of participants. These examined the participants’ understanding of this type of learning. This study also considered whether and how the use of smartphones changed the participants’ understanding of learning.Findings from the analysis of the questionnaire data suggested that participantsused their smartphone for learning predominantly by looking up information on the web.These types of learning activities were characterized by the following dimensions:timeliness, duration, size, motive, and focus. Moreover, they each have an explicitpurpose: either to consume, to practice, to keep up-to-date, to manage, to play, toparticipate, and to generate; and one of two implicit purposes: to achieve an emotional,cognitive, and behavioral balance or to extend one’s sensory, cognitive, or behavioralself.Analysis of the interview data suggested that participants’ conceptions (or tacitunderstandings) of learning using smartphones are as follows: filling gap in knowledge,supporting pre-existing knowledge, adding to pre-existing knowledge, discovering newknowledge, applying knowledge, and sharing knowledge. These conceptions reflected aconcrete way of understanding what learning is. In addition, the data further revealedthat participants’ understanding of learning has somewhat changed after having usedsmartphones and has taken on characteristics similar to those of mobile devices.
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Title
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More than just skill : mathematics identities, socialization, and remediation among African American undergraduates
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Creator
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Larnell, Gregory V.
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Date
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2011
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Collection
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Electronic Theses & Dissertations
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Description
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The primary goal of this dissertation is to shed light on a complex and persistent phenomenon in the mathematics education pipeline: disproportionately high student enrollment rates in remedial mathematics courses--particularly among entering, African American college students. As data have indicated throughout the past few decades, African Americans and other students of color have been disproportionately "gate-kept" upon matriculation to four-year universities and relegated to introductory...
Show moreThe primary goal of this dissertation is to shed light on a complex and persistent phenomenon in the mathematics education pipeline: disproportionately high student enrollment rates in remedial mathematics courses--particularly among entering, African American college students. As data have indicated throughout the past few decades, African Americans and other students of color have been disproportionately "gate-kept" upon matriculation to four-year universities and relegated to introductory courses that flank the shallowest end of the postsecondary mathematics curriculum. The present, mainly qualitative study was situated in a remedial mathematics course at a large, Midwestern university. Drawing on phenomenology and case study as the main research strategies, I investigated the following questions: (a) What mathematics identities do students construct while enrolled and participating in a remedial mathematics course? (b) How are students engaging academically and with mathematics, in particular? (c) How do students' mathematics identities relate to their engagement?During a five-month period, extensive classroom observations in the university's lowest-level, "remedial" mathematics course were conducted, with a focus on noting norms, regular activities, and patterns of interaction among the students and instructors. The primary findings are centered on the academic transitions of four, principal "case" participants. To supplement the ethnographic research, I conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with each case study participant to allow students--in their own voices--to discuss the factors that influenced their mathematics education and learning trajectories during their transitions as first-year university students. Based on narrative analyses of many hours of interview data, I began to evince and advance a central finding: The conventional perspectives are extremely limited explanations, particularly with regard to who the students in remedial mathematics courses are (or tend to be), what supports they have, or how they choose to support their own achievement. The latter chapters concentrate on the experiences of two students and their negotiation of various socialization forces and processes. Although the primary subject of these conversations with the students was mathematics and the nature of their mathematics experiences, they often discussed the intersecting nature of their various other identities (e.g., as sons or daughters, as first-generation students, as members of working-class families or communities) with their mathematics-specific identities. Most prominently, students openly discussed the racialized nature of their mathematics learning experiences--that is, what it meant to be African American in this particular mathematics-learning context. The students, I claimed, were also recognizing and negotiating identity contingencies in the environment (relating to social psychological research on the topic), in the form of masternarratives about African American participation in mathematics education settings. In the latter chapters, I discuss the empirical evidence and theoretical nature of these constructions and how students negotiated or worked against them. The dissertation closes with a discussion of students' agency (in the form of counternarratives) and implications for future research on the experiences of African American students in mathematics education.
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