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Academics Adopting Mobile Devices: The Zone Of Free Movement., Boris Handal, Jean Macnish, Peter Petocz

Boris Handal

This exploratory research characterised the degree of adoption of mobile learning (ML) devices among academic staff at an Australian university. It also sought to evaluate the impact of academics’ perceptions about possibilities and constraints in the adoption of these technologies. A zone of free movement (ZFM) scale was developed and validated to quantify the magnitude and direction of those perceptions. Results showed that academic staff are characteristically at the third of the Russell’s (1995) six developmental stages of technological adoption. Lack of time to integrate ML into courses, limited availability of mobile devices, little familiarity with the tools, as well …