Mobile Learning Usage of LIS Students in Mainland China

Introduction

According to the China Internet Network Information Center (2016), the Internet penetration rate in mainland China (People’s Republic of China) is quite high, 50.3% by December 2015, with 688 million Internet users. 90.1% of them use their mobile phones to access the Internet, though there has been significant Internet censorship. In particular, 26 out of 31 Chinese provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities have more than 10 million Internet users, with Beijing and Shanghai being the top two cities of penetration rates. Given such unique political situations and different information landscape as China is becoming a developed country, it would be interesting to find out the usage patterns of university students in mainland China.

According to the International Communications Market Report (Ofcom, 2016), smartphones are popular devices for people to get access to the Internet across all the 17 comparator countries (including mainland China). The younger generation gets used to handling their daily tasks and spending much time on their smartphones. The impact of advancement in technologies on communication has over daily life for everyone in the world and is increasing and expanding. The effect of technology development has simplified the way people e-communicate with each other around the world. It is not surprising that there is a growing interest in learning with mobile devices. While there is a global trend on mobile learning (m-learning), libraries and other information resource providers, such as e-databases, digital libraries, e-learning platforms, should adapt to this emerging needs of access via mobile devices (Ko et al., 2015; Dukic et al., 2015; Lau et al., 2017, Lo et al., 2017). It is crucial to understand patrons’ preferences in how they use their smartphones now, in order to provide more suitable services to them via mobile devices.

Library and Information Science (LIS) students are the professionals in their workplaces in the future. They are expected to stay alert to and adapt to the new technologies quickly. Based on the above rationales, this study aims to find out the current m-learning usage behaviors of LIS students in mainland China, focusing solely on smartphones. We further discuss the results as compared with the other two regions within Greater China (Hong Kong and Taiwan) from a prior study conducted by Ko et al. (2015). It is expected that the findings on the needs and concerns of the LIS students from mainland China can provide libraries and other information resource providers insight on the potentials and directions on future developments for m-learning in the region. In particular, this fills in the large research gap that scant studies have explored this subject in mainland China.