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ACADEMIC USE OF SMART PHONES AMONG THE STUDENTS OF BUSINESS

SCHOOLS IN UAE -A STUDY

Article · January 2017

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ACADEMIC USE OF SMART PHONES AMONG

THE STUDENTS OF BUSINESS SCHOOLS IN
UAE - A STUDY
Sophia Johnson*, N. Radhakrishnan**

Abstract  The aim of this study is to investigate the academic use of smartphones among the students. A survey was
conducted by distributing a structured questionnaire among Business Studies undergraduate program students. The mean,
standard deviation, Chi square value showed that there is a statistically significant difference at the p level indicating
positive perspectives towards academic use of smartphones The academic use, advantages, and impact of smartphones have
been proved to be positive. Comparison of students’ opinion about academic advantages and impact of using smartphones
by gender and age was also carried out using Mann-Whitney and Kruskal Wallis tests. These tools were not statistically
significant although they had positive perceptions towards smartphones as academic support tool.
Keyword: Smartphones, Social Media, Academic Use, Business School, Students, UAE

INTRODUCTION impact of smartphones among the students in the United

Arab Emirates.
ICT applications enable the academic community to use
various features available for enriching the knowledge in RELATED WORK
general and research productivity in particular. Smartphones
have become integral part of daily life since they are hand- Alfawareh and Jusoh (2014) studied the use of smartphones
held mini computers with complete operating system offer among 324 university students of Najran University in
computing abilities and connectivity options. Smartphones Saudi Arabia. Through a questionnaire based survey,
can be used for sharing information, emails, chatting, findings revealed that 94.4 percent of students owned smart
downloading, shopping, making payments and many other phones, and majority of them used like mobile by using
activities. Although a tiny and handy devise, it is one of as a computer connected to internet and a digital camera.
the most ubiquitous, dynamic, and sophisticated trends in While attempt was made to study the use of smartphone for
communication. Students use smartphones due to wide learning purposes, it was found that 91.7 percent of students
range of academic apps that support their learning needs used smartphones to log on to student portal, 60.9 percent
(Woodcock et. al. 2012). Recent study and ECAR survey never used for Blackboard access. It is pathetic to note that
showed that 67 percent of US undergraduate students’ 66 percent never used their smartphones for taking notes in
smartphones and tablets were used for academic purposes a classroom, 66.9 percent never used to record class lectures
(Dahlstrom, 2012). and 46.5 percent has not at all used them for downloading
According to UAE internet, social and mobile statistics materials related to class.
2015 infographics released in February 2015, out of 9.58 Kibona and Mgaya (2015) attempted to study the use of smart
million total population of UAE, 7.27 million (76%) are phones among the students of Ruaha Catholic University
active mobile internet users. GSMA intelligence released (RUCU) in Tanzania and how it affected their academic
in 2015 about mobile economy reported that among all performance. The results revealed that smartphones bring
the Arab states, UAE was the top country which adopted negative results on students’ performance academically
smartphones with 83% of users. According to polls because the majorities GPAs of the surveyed respondents
published in American website “Mashable”, UAE ranked were found to be below 3.
first globally in using smartphones, where 3 out of 4 people
Chen and Denovelles (2013) explored the potential use and
in the UAE owned smartphones. In this paper, attempt has
barriers of smartphones by surveying 809 undergraduate and
been made to investigate the academic use, advantages and
*
Librarian, Al Ghurair University, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Email: sophiajohnson12@gmail.com
**
Associate Professor, Dept. of Library and Information Science, Periyar University, Salem, India. Email: mkuradha@gmail.com
 Academic use of Smart Phones Among the Students of Business Schools in UAE - A Study 33

133 graduate students of University of Central Florida and SPSS software. Descriptive and quantitative statistics was
found that students need more academic friendly devices obtained with 5 point Likert scale.
such as tablets and additional support to integrate mobile
technologies into learning related activities.
RESULTS
In an attempt to study the educational use of smartphones
by 75 university students enrolled in Information Literacy As shown in Table 1, out of 195 respondents, 113 (58%)
course, Bomhold (2013) found that use of search engines were males and 82 (42%) were females. The 118 respondents
was very low (10.4%) among most frequently used apps, (60%) were of age between 18-21 years followed by 67
while a significant number (75%) of them used the apps to from the age group between 22-25 years (35%) and only 10
find academic information. respondents belong to the age group of above 25 years (5%).
It was noteworthy to mention that all the 195 respondents
A study of 135 university students of South Korea was
(100%) were using smartphones.
done by Nam (2013) to evaluate students’ satisfaction
with smart phones in terms of gender and academic year.
The results indicated that most of the usage was for real- Table 1: Demographic Information
time communication with significant difference in terms
of gender and no statistical difference was found towards Gender Total (n= 195) Percent
smartphone usage.
Male 113 58
Hossain and Ahmed (2016) attempted to explore the use Female 82 42
and perceptions of smartphones among Dhaka University Age Total (n= 195) Percent
students for accessing academic information. The survey
18-21 years 118 60
was conducted among 316 students and nearly two-thirds
of the respondents utilized their smartphones as a means 22-25 years 67 35
to access academic information. Among them, half of the Above 25 years 10 5
students used smartphones to record class notes. Students
had positive perceptions towards smartphones as a tool for
Table 2: Students’ Opinion on Academic use of
academic use. Although there were some difference in the
terms of gender, age, place of origin, and duration of use, it Smartphones
is due to the fact that smartphones were new to them.
 Opinion on Mean SD Chi df Asymp.
academic use Square Sig
METHODOLOGY
To login to student 4.32 0.875 197.179 4 0.000
To investigate the impact of smart phones on university portal
students in the United Arab Emirates, following questions To access Black- 4.28 0.900 181.795 4 0.000
were raised: board
To download 4.29 0.909 187.949 4 0.000
RQ1: Do university students use smart phones for academic class materials
purposes?
To access library 4.30 0.833 202.205 4 0.000
RQ2: For what kind of purposes do they use smart phones? references
RQ3: What are the advantages of academic use of smart To capture notes 4.32 0.868 205.231 4 0.000
taught in class
phones?
To read materials 4.15 0.998 139.385 4 0.000
RQ4: What is the academic impact of smart phones? To interact with 4.31 0.860 192.462 4 0.000
This paper examines the academic use of smartphones friends and fac-
among students of a private university in Dubai, UAE. A ulty
survey was conducted by distributing 200 questionnaires To share academ- 4.23 0.949 185.641 4 0.000
among the students of College of Business Studies during ic websites and
October/November 2015 (Fall Semester). The questionnaire links
had four sections: a) students’ demographic information, Table 2 shows the students’ opinion about smartphones for
b) usage of smartphones, c) advantages of smartphones academic use. Mean, standard deviation, Chi square value
for academic purpose, d) Impact of smartphones. Out of showed that there is a statistically significant difference at
200 questionnaires distributed, 195 were returned with a the p level indicating they had positive perspectives towards
response rate of 97.5%. The data analysis was done using academic use of smartphones.
34  KIIT Journal of Library and Information Management Volume 4 Issue 1 Jan - June 2017

Table 3: Students’ Opinion about Advantages of Smartphones for Academic Use

 Advantages of smart phones Mean SD Chi df Asymp.

Square Sig
Saves time and increases productivity 4.40 0.776 131.831 3 0.000
Increases searching and learning skills 4.40 0.699 135.646 3 0.000
Facilitates learning 4.30 0.833 202.205 3 0.000
Helps to find updated information 4.32 0.821 201.333 3 0.000

Table 3 shows the students’ opinion advantages of (p= 0.000) indicating they had positive perspectives towards
smartphones for academic use. Mean, standard deviation, smartphones and its advantages for academic purposes.
Chi square value shows statistically significant difference

Table 4: Students’ Opinion about Academic Impact of using Smartphones

Opinion about academic Impact Mean SD Chi df Asymp.

Square Sig
Improved my learning skills 4.30 0.950 200.564 4 0.000
Helped to complete my assignments on time 4.30 0.833 202.205 4 0.000
Motivated for active participation and discussion 4.31 0.860 192.462 4 0.000
Cultivated innovative thinking 4.24 0.934 185.795 4 0.000
Created positive ideas among friends 4.32 0.832 207.128 4 0.000
Improved academic performance 4.29 0.909 187.949 4 0.000

Table 4 shows the students’ opinion about academic impact value showed a statistically significant difference ( p= 0.000)
by using smartphones. Mean, standard deviation, Chi square indicating they had positive impact after using smartphones.

Table 5: Students’ Opinion about Advantages of using Smartphones by Gender using Mann-Whitney U Test

Genderwise Opinion about academic advan- Mann- Whitney Wilcoxon Z value Asymp.Sig.
tages of smartphones   U W (2-tailed)
Saves time and increases productivity 4151.500 10592.500 -1.386 0.166
Increases searching and learning skills 4180.000 10621.000 -1.298 0.194
Facilitates learning 4246.500 10687.500 -1.098 0.272
Helps to find updated information 4295.000 10736.000 -0.960 0.337

Table 5 shows the results of a Mann-Whitney U Test of users and they are much familiar with the advantages and
the comparison which was made between male and female academic benefits of smartphones. Results of Mann-Whitney
students based on their opinion about advantages of using test indicated that there is no significant relationship (p-0.05)
smartphones. Mean rank scores for males were lower than in terms of advantages of academic use of smartphones by
those of females indicating that females were the most males or females.

Table 6: Comparison of Students’ Opinion about Academic Advantages of using Smartphones by Age using
Mann-Whitney U Test

Age-wise opinion about academic advantages of Mann- Whitney Wilcoxon Z value Asymp.Sig.
smartphones  ( age 18-21; and age 22-25) ( n=185) U W (2-tailed)
Saves time and increases productivity 3901.000 6179.000 -0.166 0.868
Increases searching and learning skills 3856.000 6134.000 -0.308 0.758
Facilitates learning 3775.000 6053.000 -0.562 0.574
Helps to find updated information 3665.000 5943.000 -0.908 0.364
 Academic use of Smart Phones Among the Students of Business Schools in UAE - A Study 35

It is interesting to note that Mann-Whitney rank test was Age-wise opinion Chi- df Asymp.Sig.
used among the age group of 18-21 years and age group of about academic square (2-tailed)
22-25 years, and their opinion about academic advantages impact
of using smartphones. The mean rank scores for age range of smartphones ( age
between 18-21 years were higher than those between 22-25 18-21; and age 22-25)
years. Mann-Whitney test statistics indicate that there is no ( n=185) 
significant association (p>0.05) with regard to opinion about Motivated me for class 0.654 1 0.419
advantages of academic use of smartphones by different age participation and dis-
groups. cussion
Cultivated innovative 0.433 1 0.511
thinking
Table 7: Comparison of Students’ Opinion about Created positive feel- 0.871 1 0.350
Academic Impact on using Smartphones by Gender ings among friends
using Kruskal-Wallis Test Improved academic 0.150 1 0.699
performance
Gender-wise Opinion Chi- df Asymp. Table 8 showed results of Kruskal-Wallis test of age group
about impact of using square Sig. 18-21 years and age group of 22-25 years, and their opinion
smartphones (n=195) (2-tailed)
about academic impact of using smartphones. Mean rank
Improved my learning skills 1.125 1 0.289 scores for age range between 18-21 years were higher than
Helped to complete my as- 1.206 1 0.272 those between 22-25 years. Kruskal-Wallis test indicate
signments on time that there is no significant difference (p>0.05) in terms of
Motivated me for class par- 1.346 1 0.246 opinion about impact of academic use of smartphones by
ticipation and discussion different age groups.
Cultivated innovative think- 1.906 1 0.167
ing DISCUSSION
Created positive feelings 0.747 1 0.387
among friends As far as students’ opinion about academic use of
Improved academic perfor- 2.303 1 0.129 smartphones, the highest mean score obtained is 4.32 with
mance a standard deviation of 0.875 and chi square test score of
It is interesting to highlight that opinion about academic 197.179. There is a significant at p value to “login to student
impact on using smartphones by gender was collected using portal” so that they can get access to all the information about
Kruskal-Wallis test. The mean rank scores for females were the activities and functions of university. At the same time
higher than males indicating that females were the most mean score of 4.32 is seen to “capture the notes taught in the
users and they are positive about the academic benefits of class”, with mean score of 4.32 and standard deviation of
smartphones. Results of Mann-Whitney test indicated that 0.868 and chi square test value of 205.231 and is significant at
there is no significant difference at the p>0.05 level in terms p value where the smartphones act as cameras to capture the
of opinion about impact of academic use of smartphones by scripts, hand written notes, and from books etc. The lowest
males or females. mean score recorded was 4.15 with standard deviation of
0.998 and Chi square test score of 139.385 with significant
p value, where smartphones are used “to read materials”.
Table 8: Comparison of Students’ Opinion about All the eight variables indicate positive perspectives about
Academic Impact on using Smartphones by Age “academic use of smartphones”.
using Kruskal-Wallis Test With regard to the opinion about advantages of smartphones
for academic use, the highest mean score obtained is 4.40
Age-wise opinion Chi- df Asymp.Sig. with standard deviation of 0.776 and Chi square test value
about academic square (2-tailed) of 131.831 and significant p value rating the opinion that
impact smartphones saves time and increase productivity. Another
of smartphones ( age advantage of smartphones is to increase the searching and
18-21; and age 22-25)
( n=185) 
learning skills. The lowest mean score was 4.30 with standard
deviation of 0.833 and Chi square test value of 202.205
Improved my learning 0.002 1 0.970
with significant p value for the opinion that smartphones
skills
facilitate the learning. All the four variables indicate the
Helped to complete my 0.316 1 0.574
positive perspectives towards smartphones and advantages
assignments on time
for academic purposes.
36  KIIT Journal of Library and Information Management Volume 4 Issue 1 Jan - June 2017

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