HI6008 Assignment 2: Research on Mobile Apps for Student Engagement

This report presents a research proposal investigating the feasibility of using mobile applications to enhance student engagement in educational institutions. It begins with an introduction highlighting the transformative impact of technology on education, particularly mobile apps, and their potential to simplify the learning process and increase student engagement. The project's objectives are outlined, including identifying the needs for mobile app usage, assessing opportunities, determining challenges, and proposing solutions. The scope defines the research's focus on educational institutes and the implications of mobile app usage on student engagement. A literature review summarizes the benefits, such as improved interaction and resource availability, and the drawbacks, like privacy concerns, of mobile apps in education. The research questions address the feasibility of extensive mobile app usage, opportunities for institutions, and challenges with potential solutions. The methodology section details both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods, including surveys, interviews, and data analysis techniques. The report also acknowledges research limitations, presents a time schedule, and concludes with a summary of the proposed research and its implications for the future of education.

Running head: INCREASING MOBILE APPS TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
INCREASING MOBILE APPS TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1INCREASING MOBILE APPS TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Project Objective........................................................................................................................2
Project Scope..............................................................................................................................3
Literature review........................................................................................................................3
Research Questions....................................................................................................................4
Research Design and Methodology...........................................................................................5
Research Limitation...................................................................................................................6
Time Schedule............................................................................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
Reference List............................................................................................................................9

2INCREASING MOBILE APPS TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
Introduction
Education has witnessed major transformations since the introduction of the
technology and they are proving to be of great vitality. The technology has made it readily
simple for thee students to understand the concepts while the educators are availed with the
opportunity to simplify the educating process (Scott 2015). Technology have also increased
the ratio of student engagement in the education and one of the technology that is dominating
the field of student engagement is the mobile applications. Smartphones have emerged as a
basic need for today’s world and the smartness offered by the technology is based on mobile
application. The mobile applications come with different features according to the need of the
users (Yang, Maher and Conroy 2015). The discussed paper is aimed to discuss a proposed
research work that will assess the feasibility of mobile application in education institutes for
student engagement. To attain the objectives different aspects of the proposed work have
been discussed that includes project objective, scope, review of the past works along with the
research methodology that will be adopted and the schedule of the project.
Project Objective
Education based apps that are interactive in nature are the most prominent choice for
the organisations. However, it has been identified that the extensive usage of mobile
applications has also exposed the academic life of students to certain threats (Fojtik 2015).
Hence, the proposed research work is aimed at identifying the feasibility of extensive usage
of mobile applications (subject) in the educational organisations for student engagement. It
will include understanding of the need for mobile application in educational organisations, its
importance, opportunities offered by the subject, challenges faced due to usage of the subject
and potential solution for those challenges. Project objectives have been listed as follows:

3INCREASING MOBILE APPS TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
Primary Objective: To identify the needs of organisation for increasing mobile application
usage for student engagement.
Sub-objectives:
1. To understand the importance of mobile application.
2. To assess different opportunities that can be availed by extensive use of mobile
application.
3. To determine the challenges faced by the organisation on extensive dependence over
mobile applications.
4. Potential solutions for the identified challenges.
Project Scope
The outcome of the research work will assist the educational institutes in deciding
over the usage of the mobile application whether the mobile applications should be used
extensively or should they be limited to an extend in context to student engagement.
Furthermore, identifications of the opportunities from extensive usage of mobile application
will enable the institutions to leverage the subject. While the identification of challenges and
their potential solutions will enable devising of proper solutions to mitigate the threats.
Literature review
The review of the literary work has revealed that the mobile application in educational
institutes offer several benefits. The most prominent advantage of using a mobile application
in the educational institutes is that it enables an effective interaction between the educating
entities (professors, institutes and others) and the student (Abolfazli et al. 2014). The
interactive benefit could also extend to the guardian of the students. Learning can some time
develop a generic feeling of boredom, however, introduction of mobile applications has
developed a feeling of novelty and in the processed offered an enhanced student engagement.

4INCREASING MOBILE APPS TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
The ease of resource availability is another perk that needs to be considered as part of the
benefits offered by the mobile applications in the educational institutions (Ebner 2015).
Researches have also made it evident that the online resources can also be availed through
websites however, the websites lack in certain aspect that offer the prominence to the mobile
application. Those aspects include better functionality, improved interactivity, pop up
notifications, ease of availability and similar others (Mehrotra et al. 2015). Similarly,
multiple identification of the benefits offered by the mobile applications have been done by
reviewing the literary work of past.
However, certain restrictions that are posed by the mobile applications to the
academic life of the students were also identified. The first and foremost of them was th
privacy & security threat that are associated with the adoption of mobile applications. Other
issues such as the management issues that the governing entity faces regarding defining of the
policies for effective and ethical use of the application, designing of suitable mobile apps,
technical challenges and similarly multiple other challenges. Another notable challenge
identified was where professors and students as well believes that mobile applications can be
a disturbing factor for the academic life of the students (Şad and Göktaş 2014). Moreover, a
survey by ECAR (Educause centre for analysis and research) revealed that the students
believes that the mobile application will mitigate the gap between personal and academic life
(Sánchez, Cortijo and Javed 2014).
It has been identified that the mobile application usage is beneficial for the academic
life but they also offered certain constraints. However, the amount of usage that needs to be
done is a question that is gap in the literary review and the paper aims to fill that gap through
the proposed work.

5INCREASING MOBILE APPS TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
Research Questions
Taking basis of the research objective and the gap identified in the literature the
following questions have been defined.
i. Is the extensive usage of mobile application for student engagement feasible?
ii. What opportunities are presented to the institutions on extensive mobile usage?
iii. What are the challenges for extensive mobile usage in academic life and what are the
potential solutions?
Research Design and Methodology
The project in discussion is based on usage of mobile applications in academic
institution for student engagement and hence, the data collected for the research will be
collected from the academic domain of the student that is the author’s college. Both
qualitative and quantitative data will be part of the data collection procedure. The quantitative
data will be collected by an online survey form that will be developed on Google Forms and
maintained on the google Spreadsheet (Birtley and Moreland 2014). The college professors
and students will be the population and random sampling will be done to collect 200 samples
including both the students and the professors. The collected data will be analysed using One
Sampled Analysis of Variance (one sample ANOVA) that will contain an independent
variable (mobile application usage) and others will be dependent variables (Busk and
Marascuilo 2015). T Test may also be adopted if two variable relations need to be identified.
The qualitative data will be collected from a sample size of 20 through means of
interview and will include both the students of the research region and the professors along
with the data analyst of the college. The students will be offered open ended questions to
identify their perception towards the extensive usage of mobile application while the
professors will offer an insight into the difference before and post adoption of mobile

6INCREASING MOBILE APPS TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
applications. The Data Analyst will be interviewed to identify the change in student’s
performance pre and post introduction of the mobile application.
Research Limitation
The project is aimed at identify the feasibility of mobile applications in academic life
and hence it will be limited to the researcher’s academic domain and hence, the findings of
the research cannot be generalised. Another reason for limiting the research to the author’s
academic domain is because of the limited budget, time and approach to extend the work and
collect a broader sample size for research work. Additionally, the findings from the paper will
be identified from a university’s perspective and hence, cannot be enforced for all academic
institutions. It may differ for schools and other academic institutions.
Time Schedule
Task Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors
Phase 1: Initialisation 15 days Mon 03-09-18 Fri 21-09-18
Topic selection 2 days Mon 03-09-18 Tue 04-09-18
Background
establishment 5 days Wed 05-09-18 Tue 11-09-18 2
Brainstorming 2 days Wed 12-09-18 Thu 13-09-18 3
Minor Review 4 days Fri 14-09-18 Wed 19-09-18 4
Determining Research
Objectives 2 days Thu 20-09-18 Fri 21-09-18 5
Phase 2: Planning 11 days Mon 24-09-18 Mon 08-10-18
Research Plan 5 days Mon 24-09-18 Fri 28-09-18 6

7INCREASING MOBILE APPS TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
Budget 3 days Mon 01-10-18 Wed 03-10-18 8
Developing Research
Question 2 days Thu 04-10-18 Fri 05-10-18 9
Formatting 0 days Wed 03-10-18 Wed 03-10-18 9
Proposal Submission 1 day Mon 08-10-18 Mon 08-10-18 10
Phase 3: Execution 41 days Tue 09-10-18 Tue 04-12-18
Primary Review 10 days Tue 09-10-18 Mon 22-10-18 12
Identifying Patterns from
review 5 days Tue 23-10-18 Mon 29-10-18 14
Questionnaire
Development 2 days Tue 30-10-18 Wed 31-10-18 15
Quantitative Data
collection 5 days Thu 01-11-18 Wed 07-11-18 16
ANOVA & T-testing on
Data 6 days Thu 08-11-18 Thu 15-11-18 17
Qualitative Data
Collection 8 days Fri 16-11-18 Tue 27-11-18 18
Grounded Theory testing 5 days Wed 28-11-18 Tue 04-12-18 19
Phase 4: Analysis 23 days Wed 05-12-18 Fri 04-01-19
Summarising Findings 6 days Wed 05-12-18 Wed 12-12-18 15,18,20
Discussion 4 days Thu 13-12-18 Tue 18-12-18 22
Concluding 8 days Wed 19-12-18 Fri 28-12-18 23

8INCREASING MOBILE APPS TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
Report Development 5 days Mon 31-12-18 Fri 04-01-19 24
Report Completed 0 days Fri 04-01-19 Fri 04-01-19 24,25
Phase 5: Closure 14 days Mon 07-01-19 Thu 24-01-19
Report Submission 4 days Mon 07-01-19 Thu 10-01-19 25
Oral Presentation 10 days Fri 11-01-19 Thu 24-01-19 28
Figure: Gantt Chart
(Source: Created by Author using MS PROJECT)
Conclusion
The discussed paper has proposed the research work that is to be undertaken along
with the methodologies that will be adopted. Mobile application usage in the educational
institutions for student engagement is a matter of discussion because several researches have
shown that it offers better opportunities while other reflects its downside. Hence, the paper is
aimed to identify the whether or not extensive usage of the mobile application is feasible. To
attain the discussed objective both qualitative and quantitative data will be collected that will
be tested using ANOVA analysis. The time frame of the research work has also been attached
to conclude on the paper.

9INCREASING MOBILE APPS TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
Reference List
Abolfazli, S., Sanaei, Z., Gani, A., Xia, F. and Yang, L.T., 2014. Rich mobile applications:
genesis, taxonomy, and open issues. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 40,
pp.345-362.
Birley, G. and Moreland, N., 2014. A practical guide to academic research. Routledge.
Busk, P.L. and Marascuilo, L.A., 2015. Statistical analysis in single-case research. Single-
Case Research Design and Analysis (Psychology Revivals): New Directions for Psychology
and Education, 159.
Ebner, M., 2015. Mobile applications for math education–how should they be done. Mobile
learning and mathematics. Foundations, design, and case studies, pp.20-32.
Fojtik, R., 2015. Ebooks and mobile devices in education. Procedia-Social and Behavioral
Sciences, 182, pp.742-745.
Ledford, J.R. and Gast, D.L., 2018. Single case research methodology: Applications in
special education and behavioral sciences. Routledge.
Ledford, J.R. and Gast, D.L., 2018. Single case research methodology: Applications in
special education and behavioral sciences. Routledge.
Mehrotra, A., Musolesi, M., Hendley, R. and Pejovic, V., 2015, September. Designing
content-driven intelligent notification mechanisms for mobile applications. In Proceedings of
the 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (pp.
813-824). ACM.
Şad, S.N. and Göktaş, Ö., 2014. Preservice teachers' perceptions about using mobile phones
and laptops in education as mobile learning tools. British Journal of Educational
Technology, 45(4), pp.606-618.

10INCREASING MOBILE APPS TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
Sánchez, R.A., Cortijo, V. and Javed, U., 2014. Students' perceptions of Facebook for
academic purposes. Computers & Education, 70, pp.138-149.
Scott, D.M., 2015. The new rules of marketing and PR: How to use social media, online
video, mobile applications, blogs, news releases, and viral marketing to reach buyers
directly. John Wiley & Sons.
Yang, C.H., Maher, J.P. and Conroy, D.E., 2015. Implementation of behavior change
techniques in mobile applications for physical activity. American journal of preventive
medicine, 48(4), pp.452-455.