Development and evaluation of mobile learning application for practical chemistry among pre-service teachers

Lack of proper laboratories and inadequate facilities have become some of the factors affecting chemistry practical in Nigeria which therefore affects students’ performance. While there were many studies conducted on the effectiveness of mobile learning, literature remains very scarce in the Nigerian context. In order to tackle this problem, using Analysis, Design, Develop, Implementation and Evaluation (ADDIE) instructional design model, the researchers developed and tested the effectiveness of mobile learning towards improving college of education pre-service teachers’ achievement in practical chemistry. The study adopted the use of repeated measures design whereby 50 pre-service teachers were purposively used in the study. A 40-item Practical Chemistry Achievement Test (PCAT) which was subjected to expert validation and reliability test was used to obtain data for the study. A normality test was conducted using Kolmogorov–Smirnov test and it was revealed that the data were normally distributed (P > 0.05). The students were given two pre-test and post-measures before and after the 8-week treatment period. The data were analyzed using mixed design repeated measures analysis of variance and we found that students’ performance improved periodically with each testing period (F (3,147) = 109.475, P = 0.000 with an effect size of (ηp2) = 0.916) after the treatment. The finding also revealed no significant differences in the performance of the students on the basis of gender that (F (3,144) = 2.051, P = 0.109) with an effect size of (ηp2) 0.21. This finding has some implications for lecturers, researchers and policy experts on the need to incorporate mobile learning in education. This finding provides insights on the effectiveness of mobile learning towards enhancing students’ chemistry practical knowledge.