Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to investigate mobile learning in the Faculty of Science and the Technology Acceptance Model amongst lecturers and students at the university of technology in South Africa. In the past 20 years through transformation process South African Higher Education (HE) have changed significantly. It was influenced by global trends, national developmental goals and pressure from local educational sectors, in the context of a digitally networked world. In this study, mobile technology such as tablets is investigated. The Technology Acceptance Model will be used as the theoretical framework that grounded this study. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) will be used to measure acceptance of Tablets usage amongst lecturers and students in teaching and learning. TAM explains the factors that contribute to the adoption of a particular information system. TAM provides a basis for tracing the impact of external factors on internal beliefs, attitudes and intentions. It is reported that individual’s intention to use technology determines the actual use of the application and attitudes towards technology affect the intention. In this conceptual paper TAM will be discussed in detail. Participants are 200 lecturers who attended the tablet professional development in 2017 and the approximately 131 students in the pilot phase in 2018. The objective of the study will be to establish the determining factors in the adoption of tablets by the lecturers and students using TAM. Mixed methods is used. Quantitative data will be collected by means of a standardized instrument (Technology Acceptance Model) and questionnaires. Qualitative data will be collected by means of open ended questions and lectures reflective journals. Qualitative data will be analyzed using Atlas ti and quantitative data will be analyzed using Statistical Package Social Science. This paper presents work in progress for the doctoral study.

Keywords:

Mobile technologies, tablets, mobile learning, mobile devices, technology acceptable model.