Nov 1, 2016 - integrated correctly can yield many benefits (Marcano-Belisario, Gupta, O'Donoghue, &. Morrison, 2016) ;(Ventola, 2014). They also promote ...
Measuring Students’ motivation, acceptance and Engagement in Campus Community Mobile Applications: An experience of Mfunzi App LUNODZO MWINUKA Mzumbe University Campus communities are vulnerable from trustworthy and safety amongst community members in most of Universities in Tanzania. The mobile application technology can be earmarked as an important tool to build safe and trusted communities in Universities considering the fact that the use of Mobile application is increasing amongst students in Universities. This has been real at Mzumbe University and University of Western Cape where they started to develop Mfunzi App and UDUBSit respectively and now working in their campuses. The process has its challenges which may lead to the failure of the project and being perceived as useless concept while it has got a valuable contribution to the community. This research paper assesses the students’ motivation, acceptance and engagement in Mfunzi mobile Application deployed at Mzumbe University on 1st November. The study will also analyse the overview of students into Mfunzi and the concept of Community buildup whether being valid in their context or not. The research paper will further suggest on the ways to improve the processes of deploying campus community mobile applications in Universities. General Terms: Mobile application, Community, Mzumbe University Additional Key Words and Phrases: Community buildup, Mobile App technology, students, problem solving, Mfunzi, campus, engagement
1. Introduction Usage of mobile apps has become increasingly prevalent across mobile phone users (Ludwig, 2012) . A May 2012 comScore study reported that during the previous quarter, more mobile subscribers used apps than browsed the web on their devices: 51.1% versus 49.8% respectively (Perez, 2012). Different Researchers found that usage of mobile apps strongly correlates with user context and depends on user's location and time of the day (Matthias Böhmer, 2016). Mobile apps argued to playing an ever-increasing role within healthcare and when designed and integrated correctly can yield many benefits (Marcano-Belisario, Gupta, O'Donoghue, & Morrison, 2016) ;(Ventola, 2014). They also promote ease access to information around the globe, community buildup and in some cases, it helps in simplifying learning and teaching environment. Community building up has remarkable contribution to the safety of campus communities considering that, number of enrollment of students in universities is vastly increasing, this marks an alert to Universities that they should start planning alternative advanced measures to safely accommodate their communities. One of the measures that could have taken easily is building up a mobile platform for university communities to share and report incidents occurring in their environments. In Mzumbe University there is launched a mobile application namely “Mfunzi App”, a practice to building safe and trusted community. Mfunzi App is a location based and community based android mobile application launched at Mzumbe University, Morogoro – Tanzania, for the purpose of building and sustaining both safe and trusted community around campus (Mzumbe University). (Musabila, 2016) During official Mfunzi inauguration, quoted that there has being a tremendously rise of smartphone uses, the software technology of smart phones applications can be earmarked as a primary tool for community building. A major tenet of introducing Mfunzi App is to re-build safe and trusted community using mobile app technology (Narrative Activity Report, 2015, kur. 1-5). Undoubtedly some Universities in Developed countries may have made a considerable great step in campus mobile app development and integrating it to learning and teaching environment or building campus community.
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Since its official launch, an app has got more than 100 downloads with number of comments both positive and negative. During launching it was perceived that an app would change the whole life style in Mzumbe by letting the concept of community building being self-evident, and that app users would interact within a trusted community as well as take control of their own living environment by creating their own zones. Ability of people to broadcast messages to groups of people (students or Staffs) was another interesting feature which was projected to promote sustainability within different zones/groups (Musabila, Koenraad, & Fourie, 2013). One puzzling question concerns the resemblance of the impacts gained from Mfunzi App since its official inauguration versus the intended goals, considering that the project involves students team; capturing community tentative on the features of the app. In fact, its inauguration captured much than how an app deserves short of this we have number of people both students and staffs pushing themselves out of Mfunzi App. But Mfunzi App itself has got a vital role to play in building safe community. 1.1. An overview of Mfunzi App As introduce in the Introduction above, Mfunzi App is a campus mobile application for colleges and Universities across the globe. It is designed in such a way that any institution can customize it to fit the needs of their communities. In long run, Mfunzi app has to build digital community inclusion from local communities, for the case of Mzumbe University, it would be Mvomero District with inclusion of its local authorities. In its first version, an application is designed for Android mobile application only and launched at Mzumbe University as customized product from University of Western Cape, South Africa. An app has got five important key features as per its official inauguration on 1 st November 2016, as analyzed below: 1.1.1 Events This feature was designed to allow students to share series of events happening within and outside campus. These events are related to social events (e.g. clubbing, shopping, swimming, talent shows, beauty contests, watching football, …), academic events (e.g. discussion groups on study materials, academic debates, conferences, seminars, …) and religious programmes (e.g. daily religious gathering) (Musabila & Baelden, Preliminary results from the needs analysis, 2014). 1.1.2 Adverts This feature was designed to give a platform to buy and sell products considering the fact that Mzumbe University students are actively engaged in buying and selling second hand item. In addition, Mzumbe University students appear to be actively engaged in renting out appliances, such as refrigerators (Musabila & Baelden, Preliminary results from the needs analysis, 2014). 1.1.3 Announcements and Broadcasts These features were designed to fit the needs for Mzumbe University administration and other Directorates to have a platform to announce and broadcast messages to intended groups. The only difference between these two is that anyone can broadcast a message but not anyone can announce some announcements. 1.1.4 Point of Interest This is a location based feature filled with all important marks in Mzumbe University, such as students’ cafeteria, Class rooms, Administration, offices and banks.
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Figure 2: Mfunzi App Login Page
Figure 1: Mfunzi App Dashboard View
1.2 Motivation to the Paper The Latin root of the word “motivation” means to “move”; hence in this basic sense of the study of motivation is the study of action. Modern theories of motivation focus more specifically on the relation of belief, values and goals with action. In this paper, we review the motivation behind its idea and the process of its writing process (Eccles & Widfield, 2002). Realizing the importance of building up campus communities and ensuring security among campus societies has being marked as a great step to be taken by various campus communities around the globe. One of the greatest motive towards this paper is the limitation of extrinsic reinforcements that led to development of new approaches to motivate people, including cognitive behavior modification as explained by Stipek (1996). An experience that there has being remarkable efforts involved in Mfunzi Project and then as a results the project seems to fail is also a reason for this article. Project knowledge areas and huge man power were engaged in to ensure that the end product meets requirements. This paper targets on measuring the overall impact of Mfunzi App and suggests for the better ways to correct the “what went wrong”. The paper will also focus on measuring students’ motivation, acceptance and engagement. 2. Methodology: Data collection and Analysis In order to gain realistic analysis of the use of an application, motivation and engagement, the research considers the results obtained from preliminary analysis of need and preference done by Mfunzi project team. During preliminary analysis, number of steps and methods were involved. First, students were invited to fill in diary and participate in an in-depth interview. Second, Students were invited to participate in Focus Group interviews and co-design sessions. Third, validation Focus group interviews were organized to validate the results (including the researchers’’ interpretation of the results) from previous research phases (Musabila & Baelden, Preliminary results from the needs analysis, 2014). Respondents were recruited basing in various categories and profiles. These profiles consist of Bachelor students, Masters and/or PhD students, non-employed students, employed students, students that finance their studies, students that were granted a loan board, students that were granted scholarship, student that live in-campus, student live off campus in rented accommodation and students that live at home with their family. These groups would present an experience of life style at Mzumbe University with notion that students with scholarship and students living at home with family, belong at minority group at Mzumbe University.
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Bachelor Students Master & PhD Students Non-employed Students Employed Students Private Sponsorship Loan Board sponsorship MU scholarship Living In-campus Living off-campus Living at home with Family Total Faculty of Law Faculty of Social Science Faculty of Science and Technology School of business School of public Administration Institute of Development Studies Total Female Male Total
In-depth interviews and Diaries 1 0 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1
FGIs & codesign session
Validation FGI
Total
3 2 2 3 4 4 0 5 2 0
2 1 2 1 2 2 0 3 2 0
6 3 5 5 7 8 1 9 5 1
10
25
15
50
1 1 3
4 5 4
1 2 0
6 8 7
3 2
6 5
4 8
13 15
0
1
0
1
10
25
15
50
5 5 10
9 16 25
9 6 15
23 27 50
Table 1: Number of respondents per profile, Faculty and Gender
The way in which the students in this sample are distributed over the different faculties reflects the actual number of students per faculty at Mzumbe University. In addition, the amount of male and female students represented in this study reflects very well the actual gender division at Mzumbe University (Musabila & Baelden, Preliminary results from the needs analysis, 2014) The sample proves that, critical and analytical research methodologies were conducted to analyze interests and problems at which students are facing in their social and academic life in order to obtain reliable solutions of the existing problems. From the sample, this research concludes that (by referencing to the preliminary analysis), the proposed solutions to be implemented in the mobile application would definitely fulfill the students’ interests in both social and academic aspects. In this research, information gathering was conducted at Mzumbe University taking into account students with different profile groups and distribution of their faculties. Total number of fifty (50) students were supplied with questionnaires to fill the required details. Groups that were included in the study are Students from each Faculty and school both men and women for the purpose of gender balance, students from each study year for bachelor and post-graduate students, students from Diploma and Certificate, Students from the Mzumbe University Students Organization (MUSO) and students from different affiliations. Also, for the purpose of improving reliability of collected data, the Research also included analytics from Google-play store which will guide in the measure of students’ motivation and engagement. 3. Findings The research has found that, total of 15 students in 50 students of sample size are using Mfunzi Mobile Application, while 5 students among 35 students who are not using the application have little idea on the availability of the application in their campus. The research has also found that
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most of students who are aware of the app and used it are coming from the Faculty of Social Science, and less coming from the School of Public Administration and Management (SOPAM) while the school is considered to have large number of students comparing to any other Faculty or school at Mzumbe University.
Count of Number of Students who use the App Number of Students
40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5
0 Never used an App
Using an App
Figure 3: Number of Students using an Application by December 2016 (Sample size: 50).
Count of Students who use the app by FACULTY Count of students
5
4 3
2 1 0 FSS
FST
LAW
SOB
SOPAM
Faculties Figure 4: Count of students who used the app in each Faculty (Sample size: 50)
It is notable further that male students are the most engaged students than female students in the use of the application. Despite of having some data from questionnaire, the research has also extracted some analytics from google play store, where an application was uploaded for downloads. In its first month of operation (November 2016) an application has gained total of 296 downloads and installs, contrary it loses total of 129 users from uninstalls remaining with 167 active users. The data shows further that among 296 installs, 288 are coming from Tanzania, though this is not guarantee that they are coming from Mzumbe University, three (3) from Belgium, two (2) from Kenya and the other two (2) coming from the United States. Comparing number of students at Mzumbe University versus number of active users and downloads during first impression, the statistics are not promising.
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Number
Measure of Daily installs and uninstalls 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
Dates Number of Installs
Number of Uninstalls
Figure 5: Total number of installs and uninstalls, sample of 1st to 9th December
The research has also found that an application has received 3.6 rating out of 5 rating (as described in figure 6 and 7 below). In this case, there are total of seventeen (17) users who rated the application. Amongst the seventeen (17) users, seven (7) users voted 5 star, two (2) users voted 4 star, four (4) users voted 3 star, two (2) users voted for 2 star and the other two (2) voted for 1 star. Seven users among seventeen provided their comments for the application.
Figure 6: A screenshot representing rating of app
Figure 7: A screenshot of number of downloads
The research goes further exploring the interest of users of the application and found that, among the five (5) features presented in the application, students are highly interested and motivated to use “events” due to the fact that they are being updated from various events being carried at Mzumbe University, consider figure eight (8) below. They also mentioned Announcements and Adverts as the second interesting features after Events. Contrary students voted for “Point of interest” as the least interesting feature which in some ways proves that either the feature is useless for university and campus building context or it has not been implemented in such a way that users find it useful, consider figure eight (8) below. This feature is embedded with google maps API to simplify discovery of places. Map is filled with all
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important center points in Mzumbe University like Administration blocks and Lecture theaters. Students also mentioned the other remaining features as the least interesting with 2 votes from each.
Total Average Ratings for December 6 5 5
5
4.5 3.75
4
Ratings
4.5
3 3 2 2 1 1 0 Unknown Android 4.2
Android 4.3
Android 4.4
Android 5.0
Android 5.1
Android 6.0
Android 7.1
Android Versions Figure 8: Total Average Rating for December by Android version
Interesting Features 9 8
Number of votes
7 6
5 4 3 2 1 0 ADVERTS
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Features Figure 9: More interesting features in Mfunzi App
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EVENTS
Unspecified
Least interesting Feature
Features
Unspecified
POINTS OF INTEREST BROADCAST ANNOUNCEMENTS ADVERTS 0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Number of Votes Figure 10: The least interesting features in Mfunzi App
4. What went wrong? This research, out of measuring students’ awareness, motivation and engagement in Mfunzi App, it also focused on highlighting the reasons for the failure and the suggests the possible measures to be taken to improve the projects’ competence. As a result, from this research study, number of factors found to be the core reasons for the failure of Mfunzi Mobile Application project as explained here below: 4.1. Feel and Design of the App User interface (UI) is one of the most important factor in attracting or expelling users from using an application. From this digitized world, users prefer accessing products and services right through convenience of their Smartphones or Tablets with an impressive look and feel of the user interface from the service or product. According to (Musabila & Baelden, Preliminary results from the needs analysis, 2014) the ranking exercise suggests Users reported an app to have bad look with number of bugs, this includes several crashes during its use. Student further argued an app to not have anything in common with Mzumbe University, hence lack of self-identity. Despite the fact that, Data collected from questionnaires shows, eleven (11) students among fifteen (15) who used an app may recommend it to friends, this does not prove the validity of the app to user since they may have to recommend an app considering the importance of an App and the concept of Community build-up. 4.2. Marketing and Promotion Despite of the fact that an app was not promising the reliable community engagement in the app, the project team also failed to market and promote the app. The research discovered that, only fifteen (15) student out of fifty (50) of sample size are aware of the App and also data from Google-play store shows that, an app has gained only 200 downloads, which is 200 users out of 7000+ students which is total population of Mzumbe University. The statistics shows that dissemination of information and promotion of the app were not effective around campus. This led to the failure of Mfunzi App. Number of strategies could be deployed to make this real, (1) Preparing a kick-off event which will provide general awareness to the community about the existence of the Application, (2) Proper coordination with School and Faculty representative, who could help in promotion of the application, (3) provision of incentives and gifts to top user of the app in a week or any other interval that will fit the campus, (4) enforcement of the app being one of University’s communication media and (5) use of Mzumbe University media forums, including available systems and websites to promote the app.
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4.3. Project management According to (Schwalbe, 2015), most of Information Technology projects fail as a result of lack of Project Management skills and failure to meet three important targets namely scope, time and cost. The three terms are inseparable, meaning that, for a project to be successful, all the three targets should be met. In this case, the Research found failure of two scopes that is Scope and cost during the implementation of the project. According to ZONE-IT operational reports, Mfunzi App had to be launched with a kick-off event, in Mzumbe University there has to be a BONANZA which could have provided awareness to students and the community at large. This was not successful since the project team failed to raise enough funds for the BONANZA to promote the app, this was mainly due to budget constraints from stakeholders and time limit from team members. The project failed in meeting scope target since the first version of the app to be released was incomplete and did not meet all the requirements stipulated during Preliminary analysis at Mzumbe University. 4.4. Platform and Target group The key feature of product is that, they must be general, covering the target group, in this case, during development it is important to consider all mobile technology platforms, that is either Android, iOS, Windows phone and Blackberry. In Mfunzi case, the first version supported only android smartphones which hinder all other Operating systems to use the app. This discourages users from being engaged. 5. What should be done? Considering number of reasons for the failure of Mfunzi App, the project team should consider conducting upgrades of the app which will follow the requirements as analysed in Preliminary analysis study and during the process, all important stakeholders should be involved. This is to ensure perfection of the app. In implementing this, the app should be designed or an existing app should be refined following the requirements. Together with this, the team should consider organizing a kick-off event to promote the app to the community and this will promote students’ involvement in the processes. With all of these, a hybrid mobile application should be developed to cover the needs of smartphones of each kind around campus. 6. Conclusion In this research, we were looking for students’ participation, measuring their motivation, acceptance and engagement in the launched Mfunzi mobile application at Mzumbe University. The research found that, fifty (50) students among fifty (50) of the sample size agreed that, the concept of Community buildup is very important in colleges and University context and hence should be motivated along Universities around the globe. One of the ways to build safe communities is by using Mobile application technologies which is growing popular and almost 90% of student are capable to have smartphones (Musabila & Baelden, Preliminary results from the needs analysis, 2014). This research strongly recommends the use of mobile application technology and encourages all other universities to adapt this project to build the safe and trusted communities in their campuses and finally in the long run we could be able to coordinate safe and trusted campus communities around the globe. 7. Acknowledgments My sincerely acknowledgements to (1) Dr. Titus Tossy, my Research supervisor and Lecturer at Mzumbe University for moral, academic support and motivation to write this paper (2) Dr. Albogast Musabila, Project Leader at ZONE-IT II with inclusion of Mfunzi project for his courageous efforts and full support, (3) Mfunzi technical team and developers for their in-kind support and guidance towards accomplishment of this paper, and finally (4) dear colleagues for their challenges and support.
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8. References Eccles, J. S., & Widfield, A. (2002). Motivational Beliefs, Values, and Goals. Koenraad Stroeken, A. M. (2015). Narrative Activity Report. Morogoro. Ludwig, S. (2012). Mobile app usage grows 35%, TV & web not so much. Retrieved December 16, 2016, from www.venturebeat.com Marcano-Belisario, J. S., Gupta, A. K., O'Donoghue, J., & Morrison, C. (2016). Tablet computers for implementing NICE antenatal mental health guidelines: protocol of a feasibility study. BMJ Open. Matthias Böhmer, B. H. (2016). Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI '11). New York: ACM. Musabila, A. (2016). Mfunzi innauguration . Virl-OUS. Morogoro. Musabila, A., & Baelden, D. (2014). Preliminary results from the needs analysis. Morogoro. Musabila, A., Koenraad, S., & Fourie, L. (2013). implementing a community building app at two African universities. Perez, S. (2012). comScore: In U.S. Mobile Market, Samsung, Android Top The Charts; Apps Overtake Web Browsing. Retrieved December 16, 2016, from www.techcrunch.com Schwalbe, K. (2015). Information Technology Project Management. Ventola, C. (2014). Mobile devices and apps for health care professionals: uses and benefits.
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