Abstract:

From the year 2011, the University of Guanajuato in Mexico has initiated the implementation of a new educational model, oriented to incorporate innovations in the teaching process. A strategy for the achievement of this goal has been the introduction of a teaching practice based on mobile devices as smartphones and tablets in the classroom. Teachers and students have accepted this new form of teaching, where the professor takes a role of facilitator of learning and students access reliable information to reflect and interact between them and the professor, as a great learning community. However, there is a critical position about the real benefits that a teaching based on mobile devices can have on student learning.

This work shows the results of a research to identify differences in the learning of a group of students who participates in a traditional class and another group of students who participates in a class applying a teaching methodology based on mobile devices. On the basis of teach the same thematic and learning objectives it was offered a different course approach to two different groups of students. In the first group, was used a traditional approach based on information presented via PowerPoint, and the help of a verbal interaction between students and teacher. In the second group, was applied a teaching methodology based on interactive information presented in verbal way and reinforced via the student’s mobile devices using the software Nearpod. At the end of the classes in both groups were applied the same test. This assessment includes items to measure the retention capacity of the information submitted by the teachers as well as items to identify the understanding of the issues addressed. It was designed a criterion to qualify the exams and each student could obtain a score between 0 and 10 points. The variables used were: gender and high school of origin.

We calculated the score average of men and women participants, and obtain a score of 6.1875 for women and 6.9000 in men. By calculating the average score according to the high school of origin, we obtained averages of 6.7069, 6.5714, 5.8636 and 6.2000 respectively for each type of high school. Applying a statistical test to these means difference it is concluded that there are no significant differences in the average values obtained. Calculating the average for the participant group in traditional teaching and the group that used mobile devices, there are averages of 5.3462 and 7.5769 respectively. In this case the comparison of averages reveals that there is a significant difference, this means that learning is better among students who participate in a class based on the use of their mobile devices. Although the group described only considers a particular academic program, this research has allowed us to define and test a method for the comparative measure of learning and reveals that the use of mobile devices in the classroom has relation with the quality of learning.

Keywords:

Teaching process, Mobile Devices, Learning.