A narrative study on the usage of mobile educational applications by the university students

Abstract

Today's youth are digitally affluent and most, if not all of them, own and or use mobile communication devices daily, making them digital natives. A sizable percentage of university students in South Africa and Africa are active on smartphones for different activities, including teaching and learning purposes. There is an immense demand for higher education authorities to support distant and affordable education through the appropriate use of mobile educational applications and employ similar mechanisms to assess academic competency and student promotion decisions. The planned incorporation of mobile educational applications into the management and administration of teaching and learning in higher education institutions can present enormous opportunities to students and academics, resulting in knowledge and learning explosion. However, limited studies exist on the usage of mobile educational applications at the university level. Then, a narrative literature review (NLR) research approach was adopted, looking at academic materials covering the research topic to determine their usage of mobile educational applications for their academic purposes. The finding shows that university students invest a good amount of time using mobile educational applications to improve their academic performance.