Educators’ Utilizing One-Stop Mobile Learning Approach amid Global Health Emergencies: Do Technology Acceptance Determinants Matter?

Abstract

In July 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the rapidly spreading monkeypox outbreak a global health emergency; in the future, this may cause the closure of higher education institutions and a shift toward digital learning. As before, specifically in March 2020, the WHO expressed that COVID-19 is a worldwide pandemic. This transformation was accompanied by the widespread adoption of mobiles and their applications in learning with organised or non-organised forms. Although many articles have recorded the importance and effectiveness of mobile learning in higher education, other articles have indicated the weak utilisation of mobile learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic, especially by university educators (UEs). In addition, these articles often focus on the opportunities, challenges, and weaknesses of mobile learning amid COVID-19, but few studies have handled the acceptance of the UEs to adopt a mobile learning approach amid COVID-19 by the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT). This article’s main contribution is extending the (UTAUT) model in context and reviewing the acceptance of the adoption of mobiles and their applications in education as an approach amid global health emergencies, i.e., COVID-19 and monkeypox. The data were gathered from university educators (N = 392) in Saudi Arabia. The hypotheses were evaluated with data that were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM). The results demonstrated that six of the eight hypotheses had high and significant effects on behaviour intention (performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EF), social influence (SI), facilitating conditions (FC), self-efficacy (SE), and users’ awareness (UA)). Two of the eight factors have insignificant or negative impacts on behaviour intention (users’ perceptions (UP) and technology challenges (TC)), which need an additional review by policymakers, practitioners, mobile learning providers, and investigators looking to develop efficient strategies concerning mobile learning.

Pedagogical Activity in The Context of Education of Humanistic and Legal Values

“…Further, Salem and Elshaer (2023) address the utilization of mobile learning technologies during health crises, which ties into our discussion on the flexibility of digital platforms in pedagogical settings. Their work on technology acceptance underscores the importance of user-friendly digital solutions in education, a concept that is central to the deployment of our IDEF0 model in ensuring that digital tools are not only available but are also effectively utilized in the education of values.…”

Technological Devices and Digital Competences: A Look into the Digital Divides for University Continuity during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…At the beginning of 2021, the Peruvian government promoted the acquisition of digital devices such as laptops and tablets, to decrease the access gap to these resources [29,30]; however, as explained before, desktops and laptops are the only suitable devices for the development of academic activities, and even the students' perspective on quality education is relevant in order to assure that they continue at university [31][32][33]. At the beginning of 2021, the Peruvian government also promoted the purchase of digital devices such as laptops and tablets, in order to minimize the gap in access to these resources [34,35].…”

The Critical Success Factors Influencing the Use of Mobile Learning and its Perceived Impacts in Students’ Education: A Systematic Literature Review

“…The above highlights the urgent need to determine the factors that affect M-learning innovation/technology use in higher education institutions for their transformation into global educational leaders. This holds true for the role of M-learning in students' learning engagement, as this can lead to the diffusion and integration of different innovative tools for learning enhancement learning [7,[26][27][28][29][30].…”

“…This can benefit the students who find attending traditional classroom settings inconvenient and impossible, as M-learning enables them still to fulfill their study requirements at their convenience. This may be exemplified by the use of mobile devices for accessing online lecturers, reading course content, and submitting course work without being confined to the classroom settings-enabling a high level of flexibility and accessibility to those with packed schedules, commitments to other work, and family and other issues that may prevent them from attending traditional classroom settings [15,18,30,104,105].…”