Research Questions

This dissertation aimed to suggest effective mobile application usage being a pedagogical tool that caters for reaching innovative teaching (teachers) and innovative learning (students) in Tanzanian HEIs. This objective was inspired by the realization that the situation of teaching and learning environment in Tanzanian context in HEIs was largely face-to-face in classrooms, where teachers and students would meet to share and exchange related educational materials, such as teaching notes, assignments, quizzes, tests, and examinations. At the College of Business Education in all its four campuses, for example, the number of students reached 8000 in 2018/2019, while the number of classes remained constant. In practice, one classroom hosts about 200 students, which deters teaching and learning in several ways.

To accommodate large classes, teachers resort to a teacher-centered method by getting students to copy whatever is said and written by teachers on whiteboards, which considerably limits their didactic innovation capability.

Equally, teachers fail to be innovative in their teaching content by relying on old notes almost every semester.

The use of mobile technologies appeared to be a plausible solution for some of the challenges encountered. First, many teachers and students possessed mobile devices and used them for various activities, including sending each other text messages (SMS), accessing social media, online mobile apps in play stores, and e-mails [50]. A study at CBE in 2017 revealed that 120 (95%) out of 126 teachers have one or more mobile devices for the mentioned activities [43]. There are different reported cases where educational tools installed in mobile devices have been applied to enhance the education sector in various countries [2], [51], [1]. Second, most Tanzanian HEIs have already acquired sound ICT and mobile technology infrastructures that enabled access to information and other academic-related issues online, e.g., through websites.

Third, course registrations and university entrance applications are already being done electronically and online. The applicants and possible students to these HEIs also used their mobile devices to access and download application forms, etc.

Considering the possibility of using mobile devices to enhance education in the Tanzanian higher education context, this study designed and developed a mobile education tool known as the CBEMET artefact prototype. The co-designing and co-development of the CBEMET artefact prototype were conducted collaboratively with researchers, two developers, and teachers through iterations of the DSR stages. Specifically, this dissertation will examine four research questions:

Research question one (RQ1): What is the mobile device use-patterns of both CBE teachers and students and their readiness to use these devices for innovative teaching and learning?

One of the challenges reported by many scholars, deterring success in implementing mobile learning projects in HEIs, has been the readiness of both the teachers also the students. Several reported mobile educational projects have shown that teachers and students, as stakeholders, were not ready by the time of introducing mobile education tools following the projects’

launching, attributed to the disengagement of teachers and students (the major stakeholders) in the early stages of those project implementations.

Therefore, they miss a chance of articulating their requirements, which is the necessary input for the successful implementation of tools. Thus, some of the implementations of these projects are reported to have failed or not to have met the desires of the users for the practical problems they were intended to solve [52]. It is imperative for HEIs and their management to take efforts to study the mobile device use patterns and desires main stakeholders (teaching staff and students in this case) during the design and development of innovative mobile teaching and learning artefacts for a successful end-product [47].

Research question two (RQ2): How can the sharing of education related materials among teachers and students be implemented using mobile educational tool for an innovative teaching and learning?

In solving the practical problems facing teachers and students, one of the measures considered was the development of a mobile education tool [43].

The sharing of educational materials for example, teaching manuals, lecture notes, and project assignment by the teachers and students in HEIs has been a problem for a long time—for instance different CBE campuses had different materials about the same subject, etc., which creates a lack of synchronicity in the level and quality of education received. To ensure proper sharing of the educational materials among the students taking the same course on different campuses, the use of suitable methods through a mobile educational tool had been a priority [53]. Similarly, a study by Cronic, C. [54] narrated the description of education practices that include for example, the creation, use and eventual reuse of open educational resources (OER) alongside open pedagogies and sharing of teaching practices. Mtebe, J. [55] explained the sharing of educational resources using learning management systems. It is, therefore, important to understand how a successful implementation of these sharing practices through a robust mobile application can be realized.

Research question three (RQ3): How can a suitable mobile educational tool that facilitates innovative teaching and learning be co-designed, developed, demonstrated, and co-evaluated in higher education?

Mobile technologies have enabled sharing of educational materials through mobile devices, but the issue here is on how effectively this sharing can be done. The need arises for a proper definition of educational materials and how they should be shared. The mobile education tool should be able to realise this aim as effectively as possible. Prior knowledge of innovative curriculum implementation and the type of sharing of related educational materials are suitable inputs for designing a system or application intended for those activities. Involving the potential user of the application while developing an application minimizes the number of errors, the possibilities of inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the application during implementation. The process of co-designing and developing an application allows stakeholders to identify possible errors and fix them before the implementation stage later. Similarly,

first round of the iteration helps in uncovering errors, thereby suggesting possible modifications to the application at the early stage. The co-evaluation process of an application also allows end-users who were involved in co-designing and developing the application to pinpoint areas of weakness that need improvement, or to complete changes to match what was described in the requirement definition.

Research question four (RQ4): What are the innovative pedagogical experiences that teachers and students gain through using the co-designed mobile educational tool?

This study set out to determine how a mobile education tool prototype is used to foster an innovative teaching and learning in Tanzanian HEIs. This question explored the experiences gained by teachers and students at the four campuses of College of Business Education (CBE) who used the prototype to improve their teaching and learning practices.