Mobile communication systems in education

This mixed methods study examined secondary teachers’ technology selfefficacy,
their professional development activities regarding mobile handheld devices,
and how those activities affect their use of mobile devices as instructional tools.
Additionally, this study also explored teachers’ perceptions of other factors that act as
barriers or enablers to their use of such devices. The study included 104 middle and high
school teachers who taught in a large, urban public school district in the Southeastern
United States. Data were collected through the administration of an electronic survey and
semi-structured interviews. The researcher utilized multiple regression and moderator
analyses, as well as qualitative analysis of the interview data.
The results of the multiple regression analysis revealed teachers’ technologyrelated
self-efficacy to be a significant predictor of their instructional use of mobile
handheld devices. However, secondary teachers’ level of professional development was found not to contribute significantly to the model. The moderator analysis too revealed
professional development to be a nonsignificant factor. The findings of the qualitative
phase of the study revealed secondary teachers’ awareness of their varied and fluid
technology-related self-efficacy, as well as those factors that modify it. Qualitative data
also revealed four categories of essential elements that teachers must have in order to
most effectively implement mobile handheld devices within their pedagogy: intellectual
capital, emotional capital, social-cultural capital, and technological capital. When
lacking, these elements can represent barriers to teachers’ implementation of mobile
handheld devices. Targeted professional development and increased funding to minimize
the digital divide are recommended to reduce these barriers. The findings of the study
inform designers of professional development programs, school and district and
secondary teachers, as they are all stakeholders in the process of increasing the effective
implementation of mobile handheld devices as instructional tools.

The purpose of this study was to identify (1) the effectiveness of the Intel Essentials model of project-based learning based on student Florida Comprehensive Assessment test (FCAT) reading scores; (2) the differences in student engagement between students in classes with teachers trained in the Intel Essentials model of project-based learning and teachers not trained in the model as measured by the Beliefs about Classroom Structures Survey; (3) the level of implementation (high, average, or low) of teachers trained in the Intel Essentials model of project-based learning; and (4) any correlation between the level of implementation and the level of student engagement. A total of 32 teachers participated in the study. The teachers were split into 2 groups: the experimental group (N = 16) that participated in the Intel Essentials Training, and the control group (N = 16) that did not participate in the training. The results for this study were mixed. The students of the experimental group teachers (N = 780) had significantly higher (p < .05) FCAT scores than that of the control group students (N = 643). The control group with the exception of Motivating Tasks subscale had significantly higher levels of engagement. The correlation between level of implementation and student engagement produced a moderate negative correlation, meaning that the Intel trained teachers with the highest levels of implementation had the lowest levels of engagement.