Physiotherapy students use smartphones during many hours of the day. They frequently review the screen and send messages to friends and mates or watch short videos on social nets. The use of smartphones in education is an emergent tendency that must be used in the best way to get from the students an attitude and disposition that agree with their needs of the formative process.
This study has been designed to research university students' use of cell phones for academic purposes. Also, the survey included questions about the financial incomes of the students to establish a relationship between their economic situation and how they use their cell phones.
A survey was applied to a group of sixty-four Kinesiology students. The study was conducted for eight months between April and December 2019. Students answered the survey using their smartphones. The survey was anonymous to protect the identity of participants. The participants were all volunteers. The age range of participants was 19-25 years old, 60% women and 40% men. The survey asked about the routine use of their smartphones, the places where they used these devices and the utility of the smartphone as an academic tool. The financial income of the family group was asked to establish a correlation with the use of smartphones.
The group with higher economic income declared how vital cell phone use is in their academic life. The group of study with lower economic income declared the use of cell phones as necessary (58%) and occasional use (40%), with 2% of this group saying it does not affect their academic life. Respect the specific use of cell phones for academic purposes; in students with lower financial incomes, information storage is the most critical use that students attribute to their cell phones. In the two groups with higher financial incomes, chatting with friends and searching for information are the two most important activities done with their cell phones.
The highest financial income group mainly use the device to chat with friends, discuss ideas and search for information.
The lowest income groups use the phone to accumulate information, probably because they cannot access other storage methods. They are effectively using the smartphone like a computer. Using the device for this purpose is more relevant than chatting with friends in these two groups.
The academy must consider the differences displayed to optimize the use of smartphones by the Physiotherapy students, during academic activities.
Academic purposes
Financial income
