Mobile Learning Application for Computer Science Students: A Transactional Distance Perspective

The advance of mobile technology has transformed our society and altered many facets of our daily lives. Furthermore, its use within the context of education are becoming more critical as more educational institutions deliver their courses through the use of mobile technology and engage with their students via distance learning tools. However, mobile learning applications only have a few design guidelines that are grounded in learning principle to ensure their effectiveness. We applied principles from the Transactional Distance Theory (TDT) to formulate design guidelines specifically for designing effective mobile learning applications for computer science students. To evaluate the appropriateness and effectiveness of these guidelines in a mobile learning context, we developed application prototypes that teach computer related topics based on these guidelines, which will then be evaluated for their effectiveness on student engagement.