The Effectiveness of Integrating Mobile Devices on the Performance of Iraqi EFL Students’ Listening and Speaking

Abstract

Mobile devices such as laptops, personal digital assistants, and mobile phones have become a learning tool with great potential in both classrooms and outdoor learning .Although there have been qualitative analyses of the use of mobile devices in education, systematic quantitative analyses of the effects of mobile-integrated education are lacking .This study performed a meta-analysis and research synthesis of the effects of integrated mobile devices in teaching and learning, in which 110 experimental and quasi experimental journal articles published during the period 1993e 2013 were coded and analyzed. Overall, there was a moderate mean effect size of 0.523 for the application of mobile devices to education. The effect sizes of moderator variables were analyzed and the advantages and disadvantages of mobile learning in different levels of moderator variables were synthesized based on content analyses of individual studies. Mobile computers have gradually been introduced into educational contexts over the past 2 decades. Mobile technology has led to most people to carry their own individual small computers that contain exceptional computing power, such as laptops, personal digital assistants (PDAs), tablet personal computers (PC), cell phones, and e-book readers. This large amount of computing power and portability, combined with the wireless communication and context sensitivity tools, makes one-to-one computing a learning tool of great potential in both traditional classrooms and outdoor informal learning.