Examining the Impact of Tablet Devices in Digital Resources Usage of Medicine Students : The case of selected Ethiopian public higher institutions

Abstract

Through the advancement of mobile technology and their increasing access, tablet devices have transformed from a means of communication to learning. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to analyze the impact of tablet devices on digital resource access of medicine students in Ethiopian universities. Data were collected mainly through student’s survey, interviewee and online users’ resource access data from server as source of triangulation to obtain better research results. The study revealed a growing tablet device use by students for accessing relevant medical resources and these devices availability helps students for studying 92.8% of lecture notes,65.2% of entertainment activities like social networking and 56.5 % accessing health related resources and journals. The other findings of the research revealed that students have a positive attitude towards the potentials of tablet devices for digital resources access through its features as capability and ease of use to access resources and to operate. It is also found that the investment has a return in terms of helping the students in their academic engagements but different factors inhibits students use including lack of proper and consistence network infrastructure and shortage of awareness about what resources are available for academic purposes in higher institutions. There is a need of strong supervision and support to minimize the limitations encountered in higher learning infrastructure and content preparation by incorporating all stakeholders to bring better results on such tablets initiatives on learning environments. Recommendations were forwarded as per the results of the current study.