An exploration of primary school students’ perceived learning practices and associated self-efficacies regarding mobile-assisted seamless science learning

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to explore the relationships between students’ perceived learning practices and associated self-efficacies regarding mobile-assisted seamless science learning. The learning practices for mobile-assisted seamless science learning questionnaire was developed with three scales that denote learning supported by mobile technology. These scales included authentic learning, self-directed learning, and collaborative learning with information and communication technology. Associated self-efficacies promoted by mobile-assisted seamless science learning could include authentic problem-solving, creative thinking and academic self-efficacy. A sample of 312 primary school students from China responded to the mobile-assisted seamless science learning questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the mobile-assisted seamless science learning questionnaire had high reliability and validity. The path analysis results analysed via a structural equation modelling technique implied that primary school students’ perceived self-directed learning and authentic learning were important as positive predictors for authentic problem-solving efficacy, which may function as a partial mediation variable in the effect of students’ perceptions of learning practices on the academic self-efficacy of mobile-assisted seamless science learning. The findings highlighted that learning practices (i.e. authentic learning and self-directed learning) and authentic problem-solving efficacy are both indispensable and mutually reinforcing. This can provide some insights for promoting mobile learning in science learning in the future.

KEYWORDS:

• Science learning
• mobile learning
• self-efficacy
• primary school

Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the Education Planning Project of Guangdong Province [grant number 2018GXJK025]. The authors express their gratitude to the anonymous reviewers and editors for their helpful comments about this paper.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. All procedures involving human participants were performed in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and national research committee and with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

ORCID

Xiao-Fan Lin http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4544-0849

Zhong-Mei Liang http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7969-0793

Chin-Chung Tsai http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7744-9971

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by The Major Project of National Social Science Fund of China [grant number 18ZDA334], Education Planning Project of Guangdong Province [grant number 2018GXJK025], and Guangdong province fund project for scientific and technological innovation and cultivation “Research on the Mode of Improving the Core Quality of Innovative Talents for the Guangdong-Hong Hong-Macao Greater Bay Area” [grant number pdjha0130].