SU faculty members use national grant to explore student use of smart phones

Two Shippensburg University professors will use a National Science Foundation grant to develop a smart phone application to increase student performance on pre-calculus problems and classes.  

Dr. Doug Ensley, professor of mathematics, and Dr. Lea Adams, assistant professor of psychology, along with Dr. Barbara Kaskosz, professor of mathematics at the University of Rhode Island, received the $174, 226 grant that began this month and continues until December 2014. 

The grant recipients hope to improve student success rate in pre-calculus, which they note is a traditional bottleneck for students pursing degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors.  

Ensley said that while success in pre-calculus is important, it is not the harbinger of a student’s success or failure in a STEM major, even though some large universities tend to use pre-calculus as a system for filtering out students. “Students are sort of getting stuck in pre-calculus,” said Ensley, who added that this is the reason for focusing on the material. 

“We’re putting some of the course material on the phones and noting the student’s interaction with the material through their phones. Computers and iPads are used in classes and during study time, but students’ phones are with them all the time.” 

It is the constant availability of student’s smart phones that intrigues the investigators. “If the material is there on their phones, will they interact with it more often?” 

Ensley is creating the problems for use on the phone. His Android phone contains graphing problems and equations. He continues to work to establish the functions and soon will add actual course material. The goal, he said, is to have two complete components of the course on the phone for the Fall. “We will then have two intensive weeks of use of the phones for class,” he said.  

For pre-calculus students who don’t own smart phones, wireless handheld devices that are not phones but will have the class app downloaded will be available. 

Adams is working to develop the process for data collection. “We need to make sure the data we take from the app use is applicable to our goal,” said Ensley, adding that Adams will conduct the data analysis during the second summer of the grant. “We want to know how much time they spend on different activities, what’s useful and what’s engaging,” he said.    

Ensley said the outcome of the research should provide insight into not only how students learn pre-calculus, but also, how they interact with their smart phones and if the phones themselves can provide the materials needed to enhance learning. The results could be important as educators seek to harness mobile technology for use in learning.  

1/26/12