Usefulness of Smartphone for Promoting Learner Autonomy

Abstract

The present studyUsefulness of Smartphonefor Promoting LearnerAutonomyis a study about usefulness of smartphones forautonomouslearning. This studyaims toinvestigate university level students’opiniontowards the use of smartphones forpromoting learner autonomy and toexamine if apps and online resources in smart phonesenhance learnerautonomy.This is a survey research.The sample for this descriptive studyconsisted sixty smartphone user university level students from five differentcolleges in Kathmadu running bachelor programme in Education English.Datahere were collected by a set of questionnaire that consisted two sectionincluding open ended and close ended questions.The findings suggestedthat the participants perceived themselves asautonomous learners in two ways. One had to do with such characteristics astaking more responsibility, being more motivated, et-cetera. The other wasabout them as learners such as improvement in their skills and being able toevaluate themselves. The findings also indicated that the participantsappreciated the use of smartphones to practice their language skillsindependently. Finally, it was found that the access to large online authentictextsthrough different applications in smartrphonesmade the learninginteresting, engaging, and exciting for the participants.This thesisis organized into five chapters. The first chapter is introductory innature which deals with background of the study, statement of the problem,objective of the study,research questions, significance of the study,delimitations of the study andoperationaldefinition of the key terms. Thesecond chapter incorporates review of the literature and conceptual frameworkof the study. This chapter has mainly three sub-topics i.e. review of the relatedliterature, implication of the review for the study and theoretical and conceptualframework. The third chapter presents the methodology of this study.Similarly, the forth chapter deals with the result anddiscussion of this studyand conclusively, fifth chapter deals withthe summary, conclusion, andrecommendationof the study.