Mobile application to track student experimental learning and to improve the students’ attention

Resum

Some of the advantages of the application of information and communications technologies (ICT) to educational aims is the quick and even immediate feedback, which allow increasing the number of educational activities, favoring the continuous evaluation and doing easier the contact among students and teachers. Therefore, the use of ICT in the laboratory sessions also could do easier the integration of experimental and theoretical knowledge.The main aim of this research was to study the effect of a mobile application, used to periodically evaluate the progression of experimental learning, on the students’ attention during experimental sessions and on their global learning.The paper presents and discusses the experience in the subject Food processing industries (fourth course) of Agrifood and Rural Environment Engineering Degree.The results show that the use of the mobile application after each experimental session improved the attitude of students, who were more focused on the tasks, and the assimilation of the concepts studied during the experimental session. Moreover, students deemed positively the use of mobile device to track assimilation of the experimental concepts and preferred to apply it after each laboratory session. However, the improvement in the attention and assimilation of concepts did not lead to significant differences in the final marks of the practice exams.The experience of the present study illustrate the effectiveness of using mobile application to motivate to the students and pursue the integration of practical concepts during the practical sessions.