Employing mobile pedagogy as a model for instruction and assessment A case study at St. Francis College of Education, Hohoe, Ghana

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to employ mobile pedagogy as a model for instruction and assessment in other to improve upon the learning outcomes of science students in the concepts of acids, bases and salts in chemistry at St. Francis College of Education (FRANCO), Hohoe. The study was an action research employing pretest-posttest design. The target population for the study comprised all the first year science students in four Colleges of Education in the Volta Region of Ghana. However, the accessible population was made up of two intact first year science classes of ninety six students of FRANCO. Purposive sampling technique was employed to select the sample for the study. Test, questionnaire and opinionnaire were used to collect data. The data collected were analysed using IBM SPSS version 22. It was found out that all the science students have mobile devices and the most common types used were the Android Phones, Cellular Phones and Laptops. The devices were mostly used for non-academic purposes. In their opinion, the nature of the devices, internet availability and the rate of uplink and downlink influenced how they used their devices. However, large memory size had no influence on how they use their mobile devices in the school. Mobile pedagogy helped level 100 science students at St. Francis College of Education to understand the concepts of acids, bases and salts. It also increased their active participation in chemistry lesson, increased their motivation to learn chemistry and inevitably increased their test scores. It was concluded that employing mobile pedagogy for instruction and assessment had significant effect on students‘ academic achievements. It was recommended that science teachers and students should employ mobile pedagogy as a tool for instruction, learning and assessment.