Profiling mLearning students according to cultural dimensions : is that possible?

Abstract

Mobile learning (mLearning) is a buzzword in education due to the widespread adoption and prolific use of mobile phones worldwide. Contextualisation, location and culturalisation are important issues in designing and selecting learning content in general but these issues become crucial in mobile devices with small screens and limited resources. Furthermore mobile learners often encounter physical and cognitive constraints imposed by the mobile context. Profiling mobile phone users in order to filter learning content is a prerequisite for a successful mLearning strategy. Objective culture, including language and writing convention is an accepted part of the learner model, although not always specified. This paper investigates subjective culture as an attribute of the learner model for mLearning. The findings from this study indicate that infrastructural, demographic and psychographic factors are more important in determining mobile phone usage than subjective culture. However, despite the conflicting findings in literature and practical problems experienced and noted in researching subjective culture, we believe that subjective culture should be investigated further as an attributes of the learner profile for MLearning.