EDUCATIONAL CONTENT UNDER THE AI MICROSCOPE COUNTRY: Mexico SCHOOL: EGADE Business School
CAN SMARTPHONE LEARNING INCREASE ACADEMIC ATTAINMENT? COUNTRY: Finland SCHOOL: Aalto University School of Business Heights and spiders, (and, for academics), are common phobias – but what about not being able to use your smartphone? This is a millennial nightmare and it is called nomophobia. Many have tried locking their phones in a different room to get some unconnected study time, but what if this is harming rather than honing our concentration? Research has found that using mobile phones as part of studies can limit the feeling of nomophobia, which leads to higher academic attainment. The study, conducted by Aalto University School of Business researchers Yanqing Lin and Wenjie Fan, together with faculty members Yong Liu, Virpi Kristiina Tuunainen, and Shengli Deng, is based on data from more than 10,000 participants and has been published in Computers in Human Behaviour . Even though the study was conducted at a university without any official e-learning or learning that was designed to be accessed on a mobile phone, students who created spaces in which they could share resources and collaborate through their mobile achieved higher academic attainments. The creation of such spaces on social media platforms – free from any institutional input or management – also meant that students were less likely use social media for other reasons. ‘Mobile learning acts as part of studying that is practical and compulsory, therefore it is not considered “fun” for most people, which contrasts with other apps such as social media. For this reason, users are not going to be distracted from studying, or end up procrastinating,’ Lin explained. However, there can be too much of a good thing. Students in the study who spent more time on entertainment apps and social media experienced higher levels of nomophobia. They found that this can lead to altered sleep habits which, in turn, negatively impacts on a student’s academic performance. The research team’s advice for mitigating this negative impact is to avoid using a smartphone directly before going to bed – for whatever reason. / EB
EGADE Business School is hoping to use artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the content of its graduate programmes through a partnership with edtech firm Analytikus.The aim is to obtain and explore data quickly and accurately, enabling informed decision-making regarding the optimisation of educational content. To begin with, the focus is on webinar content; specifically, the recordings of more than 40 webinars in a 2020 series on leadership in the context of Covid-19 and the ongoing EGADE Future Forum are to be analysed by Analytikus’s AI Class Analyzer. Described as a ‘cognitive AI-based solution’, the technology takes video, audio and text from virtual conferences or classes as input data and examines participation patterns and information delivery. It can then, for example, identify the topics and words that are mentioned most often by students – information which might allow teachers and academic directors to adapt and redesign classes to improve student outcomes, in terms of learning as well as performance, motivation, and participation. ‘These types of initiatives propel our innovative approach, allowing us to understand how students filter and interpret what they learn through the teacher in his or her role as a facilitator,’ said Lucía Romo García, Educational Innovation Co-ordinator at EGADE Business School. Analytikus offers products and services in relation to admissions, careers and lifelong learning as well as content optimisation. Based in Miami, the company also has a presence in Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and Belgium. / TBD
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