The impact of smartphone use on learning effectiveness: A case study of primary school students

Early detection of self-breast examination using smartphone breast application

INTRODUCTION

Breast self-examination (BSE) is a screening method that can help empower, raise awareness, and detect breast abnormalities in women. The use of smartphone applications for breast cancer early detection is able to overcome some of these barriers. This study aimed to conduct a systematic review to assess the effectiveness of the effect of using smartphone application-based technology on breast cancer.

METHODS

Google Scholar, PubMed, Proquest, and ScienceDirect were searched for "breast self-examination" and "smartphone application" literature. This literature's study designs were quasi-experimental, prospective cohort, qualitative, and systematic review. The study contained five unique research projects with 828 varied participants.

RESULTS

The use of smartphones was seen to have advantages in terms of increased knowledge, perceived vulnerability, barriers to breast self-examination (BSE), self-efficacy, health motivation, and BSE practices.

CONCLUSIONS

The utilization of smartphone apps related to BSE is shown through the availability, accessibility, and focus of information and is in line with the Health Belief Model (HBM).

Student's perspectives, satisfaction and experiences with online and classroom learning during the COVID-19 pandemic: Findings and implications on blended learning

Objectives

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic disrupted classroom-based learning, necessitating the adoption of online learning in most universities. However, there has been a lack of information on university students' perspectives regarding online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study assessed the perspectives, satisfaction and experiences with online and classroom learning among human health students at the University of Zambia.

Methods

This cross-sectional study was conducted among 737 students at the University of Zambia from October 2022 to April 2023. Data were analysed using Stata version 16.1.

Results

Of the 737 participants, 51.6% were female and 56.5% agreed that blended learning should continue even after the COVID-19 pandemic. However, 78.4% of the students believed that group discussions were more suitable in the classroom than online learning. Most students (67.1%) disagreed that they preferred online learning to classroom learning. Furthermore, 77.6% of the students disagreed that online learning gave more satisfaction than classroom learning.

Conclusions

This study found that most students recommended the continuation of blended learning after the pandemic. However, they believed that follow-up tutorials and assessments were better undertaken in physical classrooms than online learning. These findings are important in sensitising stakeholders in the education sector and governments to consider blended learning as a teaching strategy in the future. There is a need to develop and implement curricula that offer blended learning to students as well as ensure the students have the necessary facilities and equipment to support such learning.

Impact of smart phone use on adolescence health in India

Smart phone use is on the rise globally, which may have an impact on people's health. The second-largest country in terms of mobile phone usage is India. However, there aren't many studies that have been done in India to evaluate its health impacts. Therefore, it is of interest to assess the effectiveness of codex on the impact of smart phone use on various dimensions of health status among adolescence. The pre-test mean score for knowledge regarding the impact of smart phones on physical health was 1.92, while the post-test mean score was 3.75. The pre-test and post-test standard deviations were 0.91 and 0.93, respectively, and the mean deviation score was the 't'-value that was 11.000 and Significant at the p<0.001*** level. The research was conducted in higher secondary school, and 60 students participated. The research design was a pre-experimental design; a self-administered questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge of Students on the Impact of mobile phone use on various dimensions of health. Most people, on average, spend 3 hours and 15 minutes on their phones each day. As adolescents are engaged in smartphone use, it disturbs their sleep patterns, adversely impacting their short-term memory.