The effects of mobile technology usage on cognitive, affective, and behavioural learning outcomes in primary and secondary education: A systematic review with meta‐analysis

Abstract

Background The impact of mobile technology usage on student learning in various educational stages has been the subject of ongoing empirical and review research. The most recent meta‐analyses on various types of mobile technology use for potential benefits of learning covered the empirical studies up to about nine years ago. Since then, the use of mobile technology in primary and secondary education has increased tremendously, and numerous empirical studies have been conducted on this topic, but their conclusions were inconsistent. Objectives The purpose of this systematic review is to re‐examine this issue by meta‐analyzing the empirical research studies from the last nine years, with a focus on cognitive, affective, and behavioral learning outcomes in primary and secondary education, and to examine the potential moderators that may have contributed to the heterogeneity across findings. Methods Based on our inclusion and exclusion criteria, we found 85 studies of 78 peer‐reviewed papers (N = 9157) from electronic databases and major journals in educational technology and mobile learning between 2014 and 2022. We then examined 15 moderators that were expected to affect student learning outcomes. Results and Conclusions Compared with traditional technology and non‐technology groups, using mobile technology produced medium positive and statistically significant effects on primary and secondary students' learning, in terms of cognitive (g = 0.498, 95% CI [0.382, 0.614]), affective (g = 0.449, 95% CI [0.301, 0.598]) and behavioural (g = 0.339, 95% CI [0.051, 0.627]) learning outcomes. Further moderator analyses revealed that student factors (i.e., community type, students’ socioeconomic status), learning process (i.e., hardware used, student‐to‐hardware ratio, teaching method) and study quality (i.e., learning topic/content equivalence, degree of technology use in the control group) were among the variables that moderated the summary effect sizes for at least one learning outcome dimension significantly. The findings and their implications for researchers, policymakers and practitioners are discussed.

Mobile Learning and Students’ Academic Achievement: A Second-order Meta-analysis Study

“…We examined if the subject category would moderate the effect of mobile learning on students’ academic achievement. This study found that the subject category had no moderating effect, which is consistent with previous results (Wang et al, 2022) and inconsistent with other findings (Talan, 2020; Zheng et al, 2018). In addition, mobile devices have the best effect on students’ learning in the medical field, the effect is not different in the literature field and the science field, and the effect size is the smallest in combination.…”

“…Secondly, many first-order meta-analysis studies have tested the moderating effect of subject category, but the results are inconsistent. For example, Talan (2020) proposed that the application efficacy of mobile learning in science is greater than in mathematics, while others hold the opposite view (Sung et al, 2017; Wang et al, 2023). Moreover, there is some disagreement among researchers about the moderating effect of grade level.…”

Effectiveness of Flipped Learning and Teaching: Knowledge Retention and Students’ Perceptions

“…Didactic innovation is important for several reasons: research findings on teaching and learning (e.g., a meta-analysis of research on instruction, learning differentiation, and individualization), changing and diverse student needs, more challenging goals of schooling, and the speed of change and obsolescence of information (Jorgenson, 2006;Valenčič Zuljan & Kalin, 2007). In recent decades, pedagogical innovations have often been associated with the use of ICT (Cetin, 2016;Kukey et al, 2019;Nachmias et al, 2004;Ottestad, 2010;Wang et al, 2023) as student-centered instructional models have been promoted (e.g., active and self-regulated student learning (Bakkenes et al, 2010)). The following is a discussion of one of the didactic innovations, namely the flipped learning and teaching approach.…”

Untitled

“…These misunderstandings are the causes of the difficulties that e-learning communities experience. Kisanga & Ireson, (2015) assert that teachers' acceptance of e-learning is mostly based on their comprehension, the intrinsic advantages of the e-learning platform, and people's resistance to change, all of which are regarded as individual elements in the adoption of e-learning (Aldowah et al, 2018;Wang, Tigelaar, Zhou & Admiraal, 2022). Aldowah et al, (2019) also emphasized that course, contextual, technological, and individual challenges are pre-existing for the productive use of e-learning by teachers.…”