The effects of using a smart phone application on elementary school students

Kim, Donghyun; Park, Yunjoo

doi:2020.21.1.145

J Eng Teach Movie Media > Volume 21(1); 2020 > Article

Article

Journal of English Teaching through Movies and Media 2020;21(1):145-170.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.16875/stem.2020.21.1.145 Published online February 28, 2020.

The effects of using a smart phone application on elementary school students

Donghyun Kim, Yunjoo Park

초등학생의 영어 어휘학습에서 스마트 러닝의 효과

김동현, 박윤주

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects on elementary school students of learning English vocabulary using smart devices. For this purpose, four 6th graders, born in 2007 and who were studying at a private institute, were chosen. They took English classes using smart devices for 9 months during which they were asked to learn and memorize new vocabularies using an application named ClassCard (Learnersmind, 2019). Data was collected by conducting three self-efficacy surveys and two interviews. All collected data were provided codes using the ‘In vivo’ coding method and analyzed with the SWOT matrix. The results can be summarized as follows: first, the elementary school students perceived smart learning as a natural and comfortable way to learn English words; second, the smart learning approach was found to be more helpful to the lower level students than the higher-level students; finally, the students’ self-control efficacy tended to improve gradually during the 9 months of smart learning. If smart learning which uses this strategy and similar applications, is adopted by more teachers in Korea, it could make lower-level students learn English more efficiently and give them an improved sense of self-efficacy.

Key Words: elementary school student;generation Z;smart learning;vocabulary learning;academic self-efficacy