Ubiquitous learning at the University of Tasmania? Mobile Device Usage in Faculty of Health Students

The University of Tasmania (UTAS) is a leade of online learning with the numbers of external and multi-modal students increasing more than the national average. The UTAS Open to Talent and TELT White Paper call for the embracing of technology and a shift to more blended learning, but are our students able to accommodate this change? We extended our 2012 survey of student’s use of mobile computing devices (MCDs) in the School of Medicine (Chapman & Williams, 2012) to the students within the Faculty of Health. More than half of the respondents were external or multi-modal students (33% and 20%, respectively). Nine out often students owned a smartphone (increasing from 76% in 2012) or a laptop, 54% owned a tablet computer (increasing from 18% in 2012), while 8 out of 10 students owned two devices and around half of the students owned all three MCDs. This level of ownership appears to be generally greater than that of the general Australian population. Despite the fact that ownership is high, only one in three students regularly bring their laptops to campus, while only slightly more bring their tablet computer; smartphones, then appear to be a student’s ‘true’ mobile device, and around 1 in 10 free-form responses called for an improved UTAS app to improve their university experience. These findings support the strategic move towards ubiquitous student learning and development of high quality learning resources for mobile devices should particularly be encouraged.