The Use of Mobile Devices in University Distance Learning: Do They Motivate the Students and Affect the Learning Process?

Mobile devices, primarily cell phones, smartphones, and tablet PCs, have gradually been introduced into the university campus and online education over the past few decades. Does the use of mobile devices in distance learning motivate students and affect the learning process? These are important questions that were raised more than a decade ago, but they are still unanswered. This research aims to answer these vital questions. A total of 323 valid and unduplicated responses from online students at a Midwestern university in the U.S. were used to examine the structural model, using SmartPLS v. 3.3.2. This study shows that the use of mobile devices positively affects the students' intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to learn, which in turn positively affects the cognitive learning process variables (student-student dialogue, student-instructor dialogue, and metacognitive self-regulated learning processes). Furthermore, the learning process variables positively affect the perceived learning outcomes.