Centre College | Mobile App
UX Consultation
Centre College
Centre College is a private liberal arts college in Danville, Kentucky. It is an undergraduate college with an enrollment of approximately 1,400 students. Centre offers 27 majors and 28 minors, offers double majors, self-designed majors, and dual-degree engineering programs.
Approximately 85 percent of all students study abroad at least once before graduating, making international study a hallmark of a Centre education.
Context
I reached out to my design professor at my undergraduate school (Centre College) seeking opportunities to apply my human factors skills and knowledge.
At the time, Centre College had just initiated the plan of introducing a new mobile application for the students and requested a formal consultation.
For this consultation, the primary areas of interest were:
User adoption of new mobile technology,
Student motivation, incentives, and
Learning Management Systems (LMS in higher education).
The Goal
The primary goal of this project was to provide preliminary research for Centre College and its future introduction of a new mobile application.
By doing so, Centre College would have a better understanding of:
The direction of what type of system to create, and
Student motivations towards user adoption of such a system.
Research Methods
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Literature Review
In order to better understand the technology use of college students, it was important to review the literature on how students interact with current systems, how students feel about the current technologies, and what motivates these students to use them.
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Survey
A survey was distributed to Centre College students, investigating their mobile behavior.
I wanted to examine the context of specifically Centre College students.
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Introduction Recommendations
Based on the data gathered, strategies for introducing and encouraging user adoption of a new mobile technology were explored.
Key Findings
Learning Management Systems
Learning Management Systems (LMS) are software programs typically implemented by universities to provide students and educators a resource for documentation, tracking, reporting, delivery of course material, and more. The most popular LMS programs are Blackboard Learn, Canvas, and Moodle (what Centre currently uses).
I was told the future application would be supplementary to a primary learning management system, therefore, I wanted to focus on the usage of LMSs and how students and educators feel about them
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A survey revealed students’ and teachers’ favorite LMS features are the basic features:
Accessing course content,
Submitting course assignments, and
Checking course progress.
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57% of faculty reported they would be more effective at using LMS if they were better skilled, expressing the need for better training and tech support.
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Students expressed the desire for LMS to have better communication features (i.e. chat, video conferencing, group discussions, access to other student profiles, etc).
Key Findings
Mobile Learning (M-Learning)
Mobile learning is a concept defined by the process of learning through smartphones or tablet computers.
Mobile learning, or m-learning, gives students the opportunity to learn, collaborate, and share with their peers from their mobile device.
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Introducing new technology is innovative and important
Mobile devices are lighter than textbooks
Diversifies teaching strategies
Can be supplementary for those with special needs
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Can be inexpensive
Multimedia content delivery and creation
Increased access to resources and helpful features
Continuous learning support
Basic Requirements: M-Learning
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| Accessible.
All users must be able to access the system whenever and wherever.
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| Personalization.
The system must have the ability to support various student abilities, learning styles, and knowledge levels.
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| Unobtrusive.
Users must be able to interact with the system and retrieve knowledge without interference.
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| Adaptable.
The system should be able to adapt to the context of the learner’s skills and knowledge over time.
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| Persistent.
The user must be able to use the technology over time and perform tasks without difficulty.
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| Easy to use.
The system must be easy to use for those without previous experience.
Survey
A survey was distributed to Centre College students asking about their mobile usage. A total of 43 volunteers completed the survey.
The survey asked about their primary academic devices, their most commonly used applications, and the frequency of accessing certain academic or work-related programs from their phones.
The survey also included questions about their laptop or PC and tablet behaviors.
When asked to select the devices they own and use for academic purposes, only 52% said they use their phone for academic purposes.
Most Regularly Used Apps: Mobile
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1. Weather
93% of students reported using weather applications regularly.
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2. Social Media
93% of students reported using social media applications regularly.
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3. Music
91% of students reported using music applications regularly.
Most Regularly Used Apps: Laptop or PC
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1. Education
88% of students said they use their laptop or PC to access education-related programs and apps.
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2. Video Teleconferencing
74% of students reported using video teleconferencing apps like Zoom on their laptop or PC.
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3. References
74% of students reported regular usage of reference applications (i.e. dictionaries, journals, etc) on their laptop or PC).
Mobile vs. Laptop Behavior
The purpose of asking surveyors about their device behavior was to assess whether the introduction of a new mobile app would reach its target audience.
As mentioned before, the initial idea of the application was to be supplementary of the current LMS partner, Moodle.
The trend of mobile behavior revealed less students are using their mobile devices for academic purposes. While the majority of students use their phones for weather, social, media, and music, only 58% of students reported regularly using their phones for academic purposes.
More students report regularly accessing academic-related softwares on their laptops or PCs.
Mobile Frequency of Academic and Work Resources
Students were asked to specifically report how often they access certain academic and work-related systems on their phone.
Q: How often do you access _______ on your phone?
A: Never; Rarely; Sometimes; or Regularly
The purpose of the question was to evaluate the relationship between students’ mobile behavior and productive technologies such as their emails, cloud technologies (i.e. Google Drive, etc), and more.
Microsoft Outlook
When asked how often they access Microsoft Outlook from their phones, 83% of students reported they regularly the personal management system from their mobile devices.
Moodle Learning Platform
Regularly: Only 25% of Centre College students reported regular usage of Moodle on their phones.
Sometimes: About 34% said they use it sometimes on their phones.
Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989)
The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is an information systems theory that models how users adopt technology. It has been widely studied and applied in numerous studies.
Davis’ 1989 model theorizes technology acceptance is determined by two important cognitive variables: perceived ease of use; and perceived usefulness.
ILiu, Lu, and Carlsson (2010) later posited a TAM primarily for m-learning technologies, proposing there are 3 primary motivators for user adoption of an m-learning technology.
3 Primary Motivators for M-Learning
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Perceived near term usefulness.
: The degree to which a person perceives a system would enhance task performance not far into the future
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Long term usefulness.
: The degree to which a person perceives a system would enhance task performance in the future
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Personal innovativeness.
: The individuals’ willingness to try out any new information technology
Recommendations
Based on the TAM, there are 2 key points to keep in mind:
The mobile system should be promoted with the goal that it will benefit users in their current tasks.
The system should be introduced as a useful resource to improve academic performance both immediately and in the future. It should be a program that students and faculties perceive as advantageous to their work. The students should have a strong understanding of the benefits of adopting such an application.
The new system should also replicate a model that one may experience in real life or future work situations.
For example, the student should be familiarized with what systems to expect and use in the workforce.
Students should feel like they can adopt the same mental model of the new mobile system to their future work technologies.