A Study of Adult Learners’ Perception and Needs for Smart Learning

Minkyung Sung (Keimyung University, Korea)

Abstract: This study investigates adult learners’ perception and needs for smart learning. It analyses adult learners’ possession, use, and perspectives on smart devices and examines how they value smart learning competencies. Two questionnaires were conducted to 227 and 270 adult learners in Korea. The first survey was conducted to investigate possession, use, and perspectives about smart devices, and the second survey asked participants to rate their perception about possession and importance of smart competencies. In survey 1, results showed that over seventy percent of participants possessed smartphones, eighty nine percent used e-mails, and fifty seven percent used social network services daily. However, regarding the perspectives on smart devices, participants’ responses about self-efficacy, perceived ease of use, interaction, social identity, and continuance about smart devices were relatively low. In survey 2, results showed that learners answered their possession of smart competencies are lower than their evaluation of importance. That is, in all smart competencies, learners confirmed the needs to develop smart competencies. Moreover, among twelve items, gap between importance and possession of ability to design adaptive and preferred activities and ability to understand the functions and cultural codes of smart media ranked the highest. This confirms the needs for developing smart learning competencies. This study not only confirmed the needs for smart learning, but also explored the areas in order to prepare smart learning.

Key words: adult learners, adult education, smart learning, smart learning competency, educational needs