Understanding the academic learning of university students using smartphone: Evidence from Pakistan

• Author: Muhammad Imran Rasheed,Shardha Nand,Abdul Hameed Pitafi,Shamsa Kanwal,Adnan Pitafi
• Date: 01 February 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1976
• Published date: 01 February 2020

ACADEMIC PAPER

Understanding the academic learning of university students

using smartphone: Evidence from Pakistan

Shardha Nand

1

|Abdul Hameed Pitafi

2

|Shamsa Kanwal

3

|Adnan Pitafi

4

|

Muhammad Imran Rasheed

5

1

Department of Computer Science, Sir Syed

University of Engineering and Technology,

Karachi, Pakistan

2

School of Information System and

Management, Hefei University of Technology,

Hefei, China

3

School of Public Affair, University of Science

and Technology of China, Hefei, China

4

Mehran University Institute of Science,

Technology and Development (MUISTD),

Mehran University of Engineering and

Technology, Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan

5

Department of Management Sciences, Islamia

University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan

Correspondence

Abdul Hameed Pitafi, School of Information

System and Management, Hefei University of

Technology of China Box 12, Tunxi Road 193#,

Hefei, Anhui 230009, P. R. China.

Email: hameedpitafi@hotmail.com

As the number of smartphone users have increased worldwide, research on the usage

of the smartphone has received scholarly attention. However, different results were

found in previous studies in different contexts. The main research question is

whether adopting smartphones by students improve learning or generates interfer-

ence. The purpose of this study is to examine the usage of smartphone among univer-

sity students in Pakistan. Using a survey approach, data were collected from different

universities/colleges of Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. total, 585 entries was analyzed using

SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 21.0 software. Results of analysis, validated most of the

hypothesis showing the intention of Pakistani students towards smartphone usage

for academic purpose. In addition, findings confirm that students' self‐efficacy related

to a smartphone works as a moderating role of intention to use a smartphone for

learning and actual usage of the smartphone. The current study has several implica-

tions in terms of smartphone usage and student academic performance. Limitations

and implications of the study are also discussed in the last section.

1|INTRODUCTION

A smartphone is a computer‐like device that can be used to perform

several computational functions. It can be used by individuals to per-

form their daily life activities (Anshari & Alas, 2015). According to

scholars, several college students use a smartphone to access infor-

mation through the internet (Gerlich, Browning, & Westermann,

2010). Like other developed countries, usage of smartphone among

youth especially students is rapidly growing in Pakistan. Scholars

recently reported that most college‐going students of age 18 to 29

are addictive users of smartphone (Crompton & Burke, 2018;

Klimova, 2018). Students also using a smartphone for academic

learning purpose for several reasons (Vanden Abeele, 2016). For

example, the smartphone has no limitation in terms of age, place,

duration, and time; students can easily link with each other for their

own objectives and interests. Recent evidence shows that most of

the students are users of an advanced smartphone, which provides

several functions such as multimedia players, camera, browser, and

navigation system (Nishida, Tamura, & Sakakibara, 2019). These

features brought by smartphone lead to an increasing scholarly

interest in the usage of the smartphone by the students. However,

this stream of research is at the initial stage, and research studies

related to smartphone usage by the student is insufficient and con-

versely scare (Anshari, Almunawar, Shahrill, Wicaksono, & Huda,

2017; Nishida et al., 2019). For example, Nishida et al. (2019) inves-

tigated the significant relationship between smartphone usage and

psychological depression among college students. Anshari et al.

(2017) reported the positive relationship between smartphone usage

and student classroom learning. Woodcock, Middleton, and Nortcliffe

(2012) discussed the smartphone usage and students' academic

learning and found that most of the students do not install educa-

tional applications on their phones. Tamura, Nishida, Tsuji, and

Sakakibara (2017) also reported that excessive use of a smartphone

for social networking creates depression among students. These

theoretical studies suggest mixed findings related to smartphone

and students usage. On the one hand, scholars agreed that

smartphone usage increases the students' academic learning; on the

other hand, scholars also pointed out the dark side of smartphone

usage among student. To address this research gap, current

study may provide a comprehensive report related to smartphone

Received: 9 April 2019 Accepted: 7 May 2019

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1976

J Public Affairs. 2020;20:e1976.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1976

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of10