Undergraduate students' exploration and use of the educational affordances of PDAs for learning

Yanjie Song and Robert Fox
University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong SAR, China

This paper reports on an empirical study of undergraduate students' exploration and use of PDAs for educational purposes over a period of six months. In previous studies, the educational applications of PDAs have focused mainly on exploring designed research or experiments, in which students have used this technology for prescribed learning tasks. Students have had fewer opportunities to explore how PDAs can be employed effectively for general educational and study purposes, and how they perceive and utilise PDAs on their own is not well understood. This study explored students' understandings and use of PDAs to support their academic studies at a university. Students' free exploration and use of PDAs for various educational purposes was investigated through applying a rich, descriptive qualitative research methodology to two cases. The data collection methods included: interviews with students, a review of student artefacts created using the PDA, student electronic journals and observation of student PDA uses. Seven emerging categories of PDA affordances were identified, viz. multimedia collection, multimedia access, communication, scheduling, data processing, connectivity and representation. Each category is presented at both rich descriptive and interpretive levels, and the findings and their implications are explored.