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THE EFFECTS OF MOBILE USING MOBILE SMARTPHONE ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1   BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

A mobile phone is a device that can basically make and receive calls over a radio link while moving around a wide geographic area. (Pew Research center, 2010). It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile phone operator, allowing access to the public telephone network. The ancient types of Mobile phones support limited services and examples were shown in Fig. 1.1. Such as, calling, sending messages and very few for taking pictures. Mobile phone is one of the most rapidly growing new technologies in the world (Rebello, 2010). In 2001, cell phone users were less than a billion worldwide with the majority of the users from the developed countries. By the end of 2010, however, mobile phone users had reached five billion worldwide with subscriptions from developing countries outnumbering that of the developed countries (Kelly, 2009; Rebello, 2010). Obviously, this increase includes a sharp increase in the number of cell    phones        used by the younger generations. This area of interest was chosen because of the unregulated usage and over dependent attitude on these devices especially among our secondary school students. Interestingly, this is obviously imperative as Geser & Junco (2006); and Merson & Salter  (2010)  had  observed  that  the  youth  have  consistently  displayed  higher  level  of attachment to their mobile phones which could serve as distractions to them because of the time channeled to the phones.

Mobile phones have become an almost essential part of daily life since their rapid growth in popularity in the late 1990s, Ling (2004). A nationwide survey conducted in 2010 shows that mobile phones are the most necessary medium of communication for adolescents. It has virtually affected the society’s accessibility, security, safety and coordination of business and social activities and has hence become a part of culture of the whole world. Ling (2004), states that traditional agents of socialization are families and schools. With the expansion of educational system as a result of the need for highly skilled workers lead to the school system taking increasing larger responsibilities in socialization.

Surprisingly, research on the influence of mobile phone on our schools today has not been given much attention. There is the conflicting priority of young people, parents and teachers in relation to the mobile phone device, with teachers more concerned about issues such as discipline in the classroom and parents worried about means of contacting their children at every point in time. Researchers have discovered that the use of mobile phone in schools is problematic. The situation is worsened by the ignorance and carefree attitudes of parents who are mostly oblivious of and careless about these adolescents’ needs and challenges. Also, guidance and counseling services are either absent or inactive in most schools and the school teachers are not helping the situation (Taylor & Harper 2003).

Most youths of today are highly influenced and so much affected by what they watch on these social media sites over the internet that one can easily see the consequences in their academic performance and life styles. Mobile phone has gained immeasurable ground in the lives of students all over the world. Mobile phone is a common sight today in our schools as you see students going to school/class with some of the most expensive and sophisticated mobile phones, tablets and ipads that has all the applications, facilities and software that can connect them to the internet and all forms of social media platforms, other web sites and so on, where they chat, access, stream, download, upload, exchange and play different kinds of media contents, which most often, are pornographic in nature (Olofuniyi, Fashiku & Owombo2012). According to Minnesota (2007) “the higher education performance is depending upon the academic performance of graduate students.

Lot of studies have been conducted in the area of student’s achievement and these studies identify and analyse the number of factors that affect the academic performance of the student at school, college and even at university level. Their finding identify students’ effort, previous schooling, parent’s educational background, family income, self-motivation of students, age of student, learning preferences and entry qualification of students as important factors that have effect on student’s academic performance in different setting. The utility of these studies lies in the need to undertake corrective measures that improve the academic performance of graduate students. However, in recent years, different types of mobile phones have been produced by different phone manufacturers. Each comes with different features for different/ specific function(s). We have different variety of mobile phones as named by their manufacturers, they include, Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Sagem, Sendo, Siemens,T-mobile, Thuraya, Vodafone, Sony ericsson, Bluebird, alcatel,  Blackberry, and so on. We now have those that can make video calling, ping, take clearer pictures/photographs, surf the internet and lots more. They are also built/ installed in/ with different capacities, mode of operation and features/applications. For example, 17mega Pixel phones normally will produce clearer pictures/photographs, Skype is an application for video calling, Blackberry and other android enabled devices can ping. Some are android enabled; examples are, HTC, Tecno, and so on which are basically the latest of all kinds of mobile phones widely used by both young and old, especially among students (Olanrewaju, 2015).

This study therefore, attempts to find out the impact of mobile phones use among students in both private and public schools on their academic performance. Also, to check whether or not there will be significant difference in the performance of students using mobile phones in Public and Private Schools.

1.2  STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

In the recent past, it has been observed that there has been a serious decline in academic performance of students in the senior secondary school external examinations. The trend affects the teachers as well as parents who bear the financial responsibilities of the students. Part of the blame (for poor performance) has been laid on the door of mobile phone usage.  There are a number of negative and unhealthy impacts and effects of mobile phone on students’ performance. According to Ansari (2004), these include   the wastage of time and money, its vibration and use may be harmful to health.

With cell phones, cheating has turned high. Students can text answers to tests, take pictures of tests or search the internet for answers. Despite rules about cell phones, students still use them during school hour . Some teachers give zero to any student caught with a phone during an examination. According to (Watson 2006), many assume that the students are cheating if they have cell phone during a test.

In view of this, stakeholders in education are worried by the danger that the poor performance of students poses. Indeed, they are concerned that the future of this great nation is at stake. This study will, therefore; investigate the effects of mobile phone usage on academic performance of secondary school students in Kosofe L.G.A of Lagos State.

1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The purpose of studying the effects of mobile phone usage on  stakeholders in education specifically, they study will try.

i. To determine the extent to which mobile phone usage in the classroom affects students’ academic performance.

ii. To I  dentify the effect of mobile phone on students learning

iii. To examine the gender differences in the use of mobile phone.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The study is meant to answer the following research questions:

i. How far can mobile phone usage affect students’ academic performance?

ii. To what extent does the use of mobile phone affect students’ learning?

iii. In what way does gender affect the use of mobile phone?

1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

i.  Students’ academic performance is not significantly related to mobile phone usage.

ii. There is no significant relationship between students’ use of mobile phones and their learning.

iii. There will be no significant gender difference in students’ use of mobile phone.

1.6   SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Improved academic performance has a tremendous value on educational system of any nation. This research would therefore be of great assistance to educational administrators, students and parents as well. The findings of this study would be of value in the sense that it would:

i. Foster restricting of mobile phones due to its effects on their academic performance.

ii. Enable parents to be informed on the consequences of mobile phones during school hour.

iii. Enable students to understand how mobile technology can be used for learning.

iv. Clear the doubts of the government about the ban of mobile phones use among secondary school students.

1.7 LIMITATION OF STUDY

The study was constrained by time, finance and mobility. The study covered only four secondary schools in Kosofe local Government Area of Lagos State.

1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS

·   Academic performance: is the outcome of education — the extent to which a student, teacher or institution has achieved their educational goals.

·   Mobile phone: This is a telephone that does not have wires and works by radio that people carry about and use everywhere.

·   Learning: This is the acquisition of knowledge.

·   Information and communication Technology (ICT):  It refers to the set of tools that students use to process and communicate data.

1.9 DELIMITATION/SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The scope of the study covered some randomly selected students and teachers of two schools within Kosofe Local Government Area.

These include:

i.  Muslim High School Oworonshoki

ii.  Ogudu grammar school, Ojota

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