A survey on mobile devices use by university students

Abstract

New mobile devices are changing the habits and preferences of students and instructors. In spite of the ever increasing market and software utilities that appear everyday, relatively little is known about the way the students use these tools in their study tasks. To alleviate this lack, a survey has been conducted with university students trying to portray how they use mobile devices in their studying activities. As a main result we see that more than half of the students use some mobile devices in their study tasks with different intensity, being the smartphone the preferred device. Some discrepancies have been found when comparing their use in the academic context and in the real life. The influence of the use of mobile devices on the way in which the students work is also studied; the habit of studying in-group and using mobile devices are closely related. Finally, the role of instructors, encouraging or forbidding the use of mobile devices, has also been analyzed. From the results of our survey, we can conclude the professors do not support enough the use of these devices for learning.