Mobile APP for motivation to learning: an engineering case

AbstractSynthesis of Materials is regarded as an important core subject in engineering education. However, many concepts and knowledge in the material synthesis can be rather abstract and difficult to understand by the student learners. Experiments are limited in scope due to lack of equipment, control of toxic materials, and risks of chemical reactions, which often restricts student imagination and student involvement in practical training. These reasons often led to poor learning attitude and learning performance among the students. Rapid developments in Cloud technology and mobile devices have provided new opportunities for developing novel learning tools for material synthesis. This study aims to introduce interest factors as a strategy for promoting learning interest and practical skills among the students. Chemical symbols, experimental themes, texts, and interactive elements were utilized to develop a theme-based Mobile Learning APP for teaching the practical techniques of material synthesis. The Mobile Learning APP was then integrated into a problem-based learning activity. A quasi-experimental design was used to investigate the resulting learning effectiveness from using the developed Mobile Learning APP. Results show that the Mobile Learning APP provided a significant positive effect on learning performance and that most students showed favorable attitudes toward the usage of the mobile learning system.Keywords: Engineering educationsynthesis of Materialsmobile learning Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Notes on contributorsDr. Min Jou is a professor in the Department of Industrial Education at National Taiwan Normal University. His research interests include technological education, application of ICT technology in education, ubiquitous learning, and mechatronics.Dr. Yen-Ting Lin is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Computer Science at National PingTung University. His research interests include mobile learning, collaborative learning, knowledge management, and artificial intelligence.Dr. Hsieh-Chih Tsai is an associate professor in the Graduate Institute of Applied Science and Technology at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. His research interests include engineering education and synthesis of materials.Additional informationFundingThe authors of this study gratefully acknowledge the support provided by the National Science Council of Taiwan, under the [Grant No. MOST 100-2511-S-003-061-MY2].