Abstract:

Introduction:
Due to the rapid technological development, there has been a surge in the use of online applications, particularly creating opportunities to support students in their academic and life skills development. Despite the relevance of students’ participation in design processes of interventions that could benefit them, their views about educational tools to develop skills have not been frequently reported in the scientific literature. The objective of this study was to explore university student perspectives about an educational application designed to develop personal, social and study skills.

Methods:
We conducted a cross-sectional and exploratory study with 196 participants from a public research university in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The data were collected from May to June 2023, using an online survey in Qualtrics. Questions concerning what features students would like and dislike to see in an application, what kind of device they would prefer for using it and whether they would like to have social aspects, like collaboration or competition in the application, were asked. SPSS was used to analyze the data and the information was summarized using tables, graphs, and word clouds.

Results:
The participants were on average 21 years old (standard deviation = 3 years) of which, 82% were female and 2% non-binary. The three most frequent skills that students would like to develop with this type of educational application were “study skills”, “time management skills”, and “communication skills”. While the most frequent features students would like this educational application to include were “progress tracking”, “reminders”, “repeated practice” and “user-friendly design”, the most frequent features they would dislike it to include were “rankings and scores”, “advertisements”, “any type of fees”, and “too many notifications”. About the device to use the educational application, most students would prefer their mobile phones (77%), followed by laptops (18%) and tablets (4%), while 2% would like to use multiple devices. Around 67% of the students would prefer the educational application to include a social aspect such as collaborative work (43%) or competition (25%), while 30% would like to work individually.

Conclusion:
The analysis of the data provides valuable insights into the preferences university students have concerning an educational application to develop personal, social and study skills. They mentioned several skills and features they would like and dislike in this type of educational application. Most students preferred to use their phone to access the application and some form of collaborative work. These students’ perspectives will be considered to improve the design of an educational application which aims to develop skills in university students, in order to make sure the tool enhances their overall learning experience.

Keywords:

University students, mobile application, skills development, technology, student expectations.