How Smart Is a Smartphone? A Survey Study on The Use of Smartphone Among Students of English Education State
University of Makassar
Dio Tri Putra Iskandar1, Kisman Salija2, Samtidar3*
1,2,3English Department, Universitas Negeri Makassar, Indonesia
E-mail: 1[email protected], 2[email protected], 3*[email protected]
*corresponding author
Abstract
This study aims to determine how the use of smartphones for learning, especially English by students majoring in English Education at Makassar State University. This study involved 122 students as participants using a purposive random sampling method where the sample had to meet two criteria, namely, having a smartphone and students from the Department of English Education. The questionnaire is a research instrument used in this study. Then the data that has been collected is analyzed deductively and then described descriptively. The results of the study are divided into 4 categories, namely the contribution of smartphones in learning, the use of smartphones for learning purposes, smartphone features, and smartphones for English language skills. In each category, it shows that most of the respondents support the use of smartphones in learning, especially in improving their English skills.
Keywords — Smartphones, English Learning, Survey.
INTRODUCTION
The development of technology in this modern era is increasing rapidly. The development of technology has a considerable influence on society. Technology cannot be separated from our daily life. Education is one of the aspects of life that is affected by technology. Nowadays, digital technology is used as teaching media to support the learning process to be more effective and efficient. The research held by Cambridge International in 2018, Around 67 percent of students all over the world use smartphones in class for various purposes.
The smartphone is a kind of mobile phone that have many functions which one can ease the information exchange among users with high hardware and operating system. 98.2 percent of the population in Indonesia owns a smartphone (Hootsuite Digital, 2021). That means the
409 smartphone ownership rate in Indonesia is quite high. This makes the smartphone the most owned IT device in Indonesia. Based on WeAreSocial.com, 42,3 percent of people use the internet for education and study-related purposes. Digital technologies are very helpful for the student in the learning process (Switzer & Csapo, 2005). With the flexibility of smartphones, students can explore more about their assignment, their passion, and much information. It is undeniable that a smartphone is an important utensil that supports the learning process. No wonder, many educational institutions have allowed students to use the smartphone while studying but with clear terms and conditions.
However, the use of smartphones can reduce students’ productivity. Smartphone usage in class distracts the learning process (Froese et al., 2012). The students often check their smartphones while the teacher is explaining mainly if they are allowed to access their smartphones during the class. It is caused because they can find what their teacher explains on the internet easily whenever they need to.
At Universitas Negeri Makassar, especially the English Education Department, many courses allow using smartphones in learning. The feature that they used such as LMS access, Academic Portals, Chat Groups to share material, and cameras to take pictures and videos. In addition to the features above, there are many other features used by students to support their learning such as podcasts, youtube, Duolingo, notes, and others. Social media is also often used by students in learning English outside the classroom. Social media like Tiktok and Instagram which have various types of English learning content packaged with new and more attractive content make users interested in learning English outside the classroom.
Based on the explanation above, this research is intended to explore the use of mobile phones by university students within the educational context. The researchers would like to find out how powerful the impact of smartphone use is in influencing students’ English learning process. The research problem is formulated how do the students utilize their smartphones for educational goals?
LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Smartphone
The smartphone is computer equipment for connecting to people in different places.
Alfaraweh & Jusoh (2014) state that a smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing ability and connectivity system. Smartphone runs a complete system operation which
resembles a desktop computer. Smartphone is similar to a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) which connects to the internet. Hence, the smartphone is complete with advanced features with purposes. The features are a touchscreen display, browser application, Wi-Fi, and a lot of sophisticated applications. Smartphone has operating system, it belongs to IOS, Android, Blackberry OS, and Windows Mobile (Bala, Sharma, & Kaur, 2015). The operating system is used similarly to the operating system in a desktop computer, to run the application and another system.
2. Smartphone Usage
According to Alfaraweh and Jusoh (2014), smartphone usage is categorized into two types, normal usage and learning usage. Normal usage is the use of the smartphone as it is. the regular usage of smartphone is divided into several main points; 1. Make a phone call, 2. Check email, 3. Check website pages, 4. Send text messages, 5. Read related documents in PDF, Word, and others, 6. Taking pictures, 7. Browsing Internet, 8. Download software, 9. Listen to music, 10.
Take video, 11. Watch movie, 12. Use as an alarm clock, 13. Use it as a watch.
Alzougool & Almansour (2017) argue that although most students use smartphone just for normal usage, implicitly smartphone can be useful and beneficial for learning. Learning usage is the use of smartphone for educational and learning purposes. the smartphone usage for learning activities is checking exam schedule, checking class timetable, checking grades, login to university portal, taking photos of class presentation, recording class lecture, using LMS, using to participate in class learning group, downloading class material, registering courses, reading tutors’ announcement, sending emails to tutors, using SIS, using e-library resources, processing students relating services transaction, payment of fees, taking notes in a classroom, uploading class assignments.
3. Learning Media
Learning media is a tool in the form of physical or non-physical that can assist teachers in conveying material to students. Asyhar (2014) says that learning media is anything that can convey or distribute messages from a source in a planned manner so that a conducive learning environment occurs. With learning media, the student’s learning process will be more effective and efficient.
411 Asyhar (2014), classifies learning media into 4 types, namely visual media, audio, audio visual, and multimedia. The application of learning media in the learning process certainly has its function. Learning media has an important role in the success of the learning process, one of which is explaining abstract things that cannot be conveyed or visualized by the teacher in delivering the material.
4. Smartphone in Learning English
The use of smartphones can be very supportive of the student’s learning process, especially in improving their English skills. Muntaha (2017) says that smartphones help students become autonomous learners and make the learning process more personalized, especially because it involves the internet. Bars (2011:231) emphasizes that smartphones make it possible to access information from various sources anytime and anywhere.
Smartphones will support learning because they provide various applications with different purposes. Students can decide which is the most appropriate for their needs. Not only applications, but the suitability of smartphones themselves will be very helpful in the learning process. These are Wi-Fi which can ease users to access the internet. MP3 Player which can help to improve student’s listening skills, Video Player which can help students to access videos related to English skills, note which can be used by students to take notes of their new vocabulary findings.
METHODS
This study adopts a survey study. A survey is a method that gathers data from a large number of cases (Best & Kahn, 2006). It is an important kind of research method. The result is not to focus on the individuals’ character. It focuses on the statistical result when the data are combined from the amounts of individual cases. A survey involves experts with planning that is full of imagination, accurate analysis and interpretation of the data, and sequential result reports. This research proposed a survey study to analyze smartphone usage for educational purposes among university students.
The population of this study is all the students of the class of 2020 of English Education at the Faculty of Language and Literature, Universitas Negeri Makassar which consist of 205 students. This research used purposive random sampling. Purposive sampling is a process of choosing a sample that is assumed to the representative of the population (Gay, 2012). Random sampling is a sampling technique where the sample is chosen in an equal and independent way
which is assumed that all the samples have the same opportunity to be chosen. The sample was chosen randomly from those who fulfill the requirement, those are students of English Education and Owned smartphones. The sample of this study is English Education students in 2020 from all the class who fill out the questionnaire that has been shared which consist of 122 students who meet the criteria determined by the researchers.
This research used only one instrument, the questionnaire. It was used to gain the data and answer the research questions. The questionnaire is a written collection of questions to be answered by the sample (Gay, 2012). The questionnaire consists of two parts. The First contains questions about demographic data such as age, gender, types of smartphones and the ownership of the smartphone and internet connection. The second consists of questions about the use of smartphones for education purposes especially in learning English.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
This section presents a description of research data that portrays the use of smartphone among the English Education Department student class of 2020 of Universitas Negeri Makassar.
The data is presented in tabular form through Table 1 which shows the response to each statement contained in the questionnaire below:
Table 1. Students’ Response
No Statement SD D N A SA
1
The emergence of smartphones has significantly contributed to my learning process.
0.8%
1
6.6%
8
11.5%
14
31.2%
38
50%
61 2 I purposely use my smartphone for
English learning purposes
1.6%
2
9.8%
12
26.2%
32
35.3%
43
27.1%
33 3
I use a smartphone voice recorder to record lessons and can listen to them later.
2.5%
3
9.0%
11
25.4%
31
29.5%
36
33.6%
41
4
Usually, I look up unknown lexical items in the dictionary on my smartphone.
1.6%
2
6.6%
8
11.5%
14
26.2%
31
54.1%
66
5
The continuous advancement of technology brings unique opportunities for me to develop my English skills.
2.5%
3
6.6%
8
14.8%
18
32%
39
44.3%
54 6 With a smartphone, I can save reading
material and open it anytime.
2.5%
3
4.1%
5
8.2%
10
27.1%
33
58.2%
71 7 I do not like using a smartphone for
learning English purpose.
37.7%
46
23%
28
11.5%
14
17.2%
21
10.7%
13 8 I use my smartphone to take photos
and videos of assignments on learning.
0%
0
2.5%
3
10.7%
13
28.7%
35
58.2%
71
413 9
Having a smartphone allows me to learn English whenever and wherever I want without restrictions.
1.6%
2
6.6%
8
8.2%
10
26.2%
32
57.4%
70 10 Having a smartphone saves a lot of my
time in studying.
0%
0
5.7%
7
31.2%
38
27.1%
33
36.1%
44
11
The various applications offered by smartphones generally distract me from focusing on studies related to English.
4.1%
5
8.2%
10
30.3%
37
28.7%
35
28.7%
35
12
Having a smartphone is a real problem that prevents me from concentrating on English studies in college.
6.6%
8
21.3%
26
28.7%
35
27.1%
33
16.4%
20
13
Smartphones are undoubtedly the most important tool in terms of access to information.
0%
0
4.9%
6
15.6%
19
24.6%
30
54.9%
67 14 Using a smartphone helps me develop
my reading skills.
0.8%
1
3.3%
4
23%
28
31.1%
38
41.8%
51 15 Using a smartphone helps develop my
listening skills.
0%
0
4.9%
6
20.5%
25
30.3%
37
44.3%
54 16 Using a smartphone helps me develop
my writing skills.
1.6%
2
5.7%
7
32.8%
40
34.4%
42
25.4%
31 17 Using a smartphone helps me develop
my speaking skills.
0.8%
1
3.3%
4
25.4%
31
36.9%
45
33.6%
41 18 Using a smartphone helps me develop
my vocabulary.
2.5%
3
0.8%
1
18%
22
32.8%
40
45.9%
56 19
Smartphones offer the opportunity to practice English outside of the classroom.
1.6%
2
4.9%
6
16.4%
20
26.2%
31
50.8%
62 20 I can use the smartphone quite
effectively for study purposes.
0%
0
6.6%
8
21.3%
26
41%
50
31.2%
38 21
I try to take advantage of every facility provided by the smartphone to improve Language skills.
1.6%
2
5.7%
7
15.6%
19
36.9%
45
40.2%
49 22 Smartphone is a real assistant for me in
doing tasks.
1.6%
1
4.1%
5
16.4%
20
29.6%
36
49.2%
60
23
As a prospective English teacher, I can use my smartphone as a facilitator to develop English language skills for the teaching profession.
0%
0
9%
11
20.5%
25
26.2%
32
44.3%
54
24 I cannot use my smartphone effectively for study purposes.
8.2%
10
26.2%
32
32.8%
40
18.9%
23
13.9%
17 25 Smartphones are very useful in terms
of their contribution to my studies.
1.6%
2
4.9%
6
22.1%
27
31.2%
38
40.2%
49 26 I use certain English learning
applications on my smartphone.
1.6%
2
2.5%
3
17.2%
21
37.7%
46
41%
50 27
I use a smartphone that has features such as an English dictionary and internet access.
0.8%
1
6.6%
8
13.1%
16
23%
28
56.6%
69 28 I bought a smartphone because I can
use it to learn English.
4.1%
5
9%
11
37.7%
46
27.9%
34
21.3%
26 29 I spend a lot of time chatting with my
friends using English via smartphone.
2.5%
3
15.6%
19
36.1%
44
25.4%
31
20.5%
25
30
I use English as a medium of communication when chatting on WhatsApp Messenger.
3.3%
4
11.5%
14
31.2%
38
24.6%
30
29.5%
36 31 During my free time, I watch English
videos.
0.8%
1
12.3%
15
28.7%
35
29.5%
36
28.7%
35 32
Using google translate to find out new words, watch Youtube, by using social apps. Good way to learn English.
0%
0
4.9%
6
13.9%
17
31.2%
38
50%
61
33
Smartphones are easy to carry and during free time we can access and learn.
0.8%
1
4.9%
6
15.6%
19
21.3%
26
57.4%
70
34
Smartphones are very helpful for, but as a student, I always need actual books to study.
1.6%
2
5.7%
7
21.3%
26
36.9%
45
34.4%
42 35 Smartphone is very helpful to check my
pronunciation.
0.8%
1
6.6%
8
16.4%
20
29.5%
36
46.7%
57 36 Smartphone is very helpful to verify the
use of English words that I use.
0.8%
1
5.7%
7
18%
22
30.3%
37
45.1%
55 37 Through smartphones, material related
to grammar can be accessed.
0.8%
1
5.7%
7
13.1%
16
28.7%
35
51.6%
63 38 Smartphone helps me to record and
memorize lists of words.
3.3%
4
2.5%
3
18%
22
36.1%
44
40.2%
49 39
Apps like WhatsApp help me form groups and contribute to improving my writing, reading and speaking skills.
0.8%
1
4.1%
5
22.1%
27
32.8%
40
40.2%
49
40
There are many smartphone apps that can interfere with improving my English skills.
5.7%
7
9%
11
27.1%
33
29.5%
36
28.7%
35
1. Smartphone’s Contribution to Learning
Questionnaire number 1 “The emergence of smartphones has significantly contributed to my learning process”, respondents' responses showed that there were 81% or 99 people indicated their agreement. Meanwhile, only 7% or 9 people opposed it. Item number 25
“Smartphones are very useful in terms of their contribution to my studies” also received approval responses from 71.3% or approximately 87 people. In other words, smartphones, in their use for learning, make a real contribution to assisting students in learning.
In addition, item number 9 “Having a smartphone allows me to learn English whenever and wherever I want without restrictions”, as well as item number 10 “Having a smartphone saves a lot of my time in studying”, each also received a high approval score of 83, 6% and 63.1%.
This indicates that smartphone ownership helps students to be more optimal in learning
Nb. (SDA) Strongly Disagree:1, (D) Disagree: 2, (N) Neutral: 3, (A) Agree: 4, (SA) Strongly Agree: 5.
415 Andika (2019) also says that smartphone-based learning is very flexible because it can be done anywhere and anytime without having the learning process occur in the classroom thus it can save students' time in learning, especially in English. Because of the smartphone, there is no limitation for learning anymore. This is due to the application and various facilities offered by the smartphone itself.
The explanation above is further strengthened by item number 7 which shows the opposite of the previous items " I do not like using a smartphone for learning English purpose" The answers from respondents showed a high level of disagreement, specifically as many as 74 people or 60.7%.
2. Smartphones’ Application for Learning Goals
Item related to the application of smartphone for learning is contained in several items.
Item 2 “I purposely use my smartphone for English learning purposes”, as many as 76 respondents or 62.3% agreed that they intentionally use their smartphones for their study purposes. It can be said that students realize the power of smartphones and use them appropriately, especially in this modern era, technology such as smartphones will be very useful if used properly.
In item 6 "With a smartphone, I can save reading material and open it anytime", 85.2% said they agreed and only 8 people or 6.6% contrasted. This means they use their smartphones to store reading material so that they can access it anytime. This is in line with items numbers 13 and 37, “Smartphones are undoubtedly the most important tool in terms of access to information” and “Through smartphones, materials related to grammar can be accessed”, where item 13 received 79.5% approval, which means they also use smartphones to access various information. Item 37 also received approval of 80.3% which proves that they use their smartphones to search for material related to grammar through it.
On the other hand, in item 12 "Having a smartphone is a real problem that prevents me from concentrating on English studies in college" 43.4% agreed and only 27.9% dissented, thus it can be said that smartphones can also become a distraction in the learning process while on campus. This can be caused by the various features and applications provided by the smartphone itself, such as Instagram, WhatsApp, Tiktok, and the like. Therefore, it can be concluded that students like to use their smartphones to support the learning process,
especially learning English, but it is possible that smartphones can also break their concentration while studying on campus.
3. Smartphones’ Features
In addition to the outstanding computing services, the smartphone also has several outstanding merits such as a much better-quality camera, large storage to store large files, accessibility of notes and voice recordings, and other applications for instance online and offline dictionaries, social media, and various learning applications. In item 21 "I try to take advantage of every facility provided by the smartphone to improve Language skills", 77% of students said they agreed that they fully leverage the benefits of the features offered by smartphones to improve their English skills. For the use of a voice recorder in statement number 3 and the use of a camera to take photos or videos related to the task in statement number 8, both of them obtained positive acknowledgements where 63.1% and 86.9% agreed respectively, while those who expressed disapproval were less than 20%.
In learning English, a dictionary is the most important thing for students to have.
Smartphones with dictionary features, both those that can only be accessed using the internet (online) or those that do not require internet (offline), apparently are also widely used by students through their smartphones. This can be seen from the answer to statement number 4 "Usually, I look up unknown lexical items in the dictionary on my smartphone" which received 79.5% approval or about 97 people and only 8.2% contradicted. In addition, item 27 which contains similar statements regarding the use of dictionaries and the internet received a positive response of 79.5% and 7.4% negative response. This shows that the dictionary and translation apps are very often used by students in learning English.
Besides dictionaries, applications like WhatsApp are also managed by students learning English. This can be seen from Statement 39 “Apps like WhatsApp help me form groups and contribute to improving my writing, reading and speaking skills” which received 73%
acceptance and only 4.9% or amount 6 people who differed. In addition, it turns out that more than 50% of respondents agree that they often use English to communicate with each other via WhatsApp as stated in statement 30. This proves that the use of applications that are not devoted to learning including social media can be used to improve students’ English skill.
417 4. Smartphone for English Skills
In statement items numbered 14, 15, 16, and 17, all four of them got the result that the students agreed that smartphones helped them improve their skills. Statement 15, which is listening skill, gets the highest approval, which is 74.6%. This is because applications such as YouTube, social media, and various applications that display English-language videos, whether consciously or not, have a major impact on improving students' listening skills. On the other hand, writing skills get the lowest approval score, which is only from 73 respondents. However, it does not mean that students' writing skills do not develop with the use of smartphones even though are low. This rate is more than 50% of respondents who have filled it out which means more than half of respondents agree that using smartphones helps them improve their writing skills. whereas reading and speaking, they get 73% and 70.5%, respectively. From the four points of the statement above, all of them get very few disagreements.
Their vocabulary and pronunciation can also be developed with the help of smartphones.
A total of 98 students admitted that their vocabulary developed thanks to the help of smartphones. This can be seen from the answer to statement number 18, namely "Using a smartphone helps me develop my vocabulary". Only 4 people answered disagree. This is because of the use of a dictionary that is so easy and flexible and internet access that allows them to reach an unlimited number of vocabulary words.
In addition, 76.2% of the total respondents said they agreed with the statement
"Smartphone is very helpful to check my pronunciation" contained in item 35 and 7.4% said they did not agree. This is also because of the online dictionary feature that can provide examples of correct pronunciation both orally in the form of direct pronunciation and written in the form of phonetic symbols, making it easier for them to correct their pronunciation. This feature is one of the advantages that print dictionaries do not have, which usually only shows phonetic symbols or even translations.
CONCLUSIONS
Based on the result, Smartphones make a real contribution to the student's learning process, especially in learning English. The flexibility of smartphones makes it easier for students to access learning materials anytime and anywhere so they can escalate their learning outcomes.
The features offered by smartphones can be used by students to elevate the quality of their learning as cameras, voice recorders, and notepads. In addition, there are many learning applications, both free and paid, that students can use to learn. Dictionary is one application that is very helpful in the process of learning English for students. they also use it to check lexical items they do not know, get new vocabulary and increase their vocabulary bank. They also use it to check the correct pronunciation of a word.
Social media can also be used by students to improve their English skills. Youtube and WhatsApp are examples. Students can use YouTube, a video streaming platform, to access various English videos that can be watched, which helps improve listening skills. They often use English when communicating via chat or telephone on WhatsApp which can improve their English language skills.
The researchers suggest that instead of trying to prevent the students from being distracted by their cell phones in class, we should teach them how to deal with possible distractions, while also taking advantage of the opportunity to learn on their own. Like it or not, smartphones are likely to gain more and more popularity soon, and every opportunity and advantage they come across should be taken seriously, and incorporated into the language learning process.
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