Smartphone Incorporated Learning and Its Effects on Academic Performance Among Tertiary Learners: Evidence from University of Ilorin Students

The usage of Smartphone among students is an emerging trend in Nigeria as higher institutions now incorporates mobile learning devices into their curriculum. This study sets to investigate the effects of smartphones usage on academic performance among higher learning students, using data obtained from 91 students via questionnaire schedules, and analysed using descriptive statistics and logit regression. About 51% of the respondents are males while 49% are females. Also, most of the respondents (89%) used smartphone for both social and academic purposes, and Whatsapp was the most (70%) used of the social networking platforms. Most of the respondents (45%) has CGPA ranging between 2.4-3.49, while only about 1% has CGPA below 2.0. About 6% of the 81 students (89%) who use tablet for both academic and social purposes has CGPA of 4.5 and above while only about 1% has CGPA below 2.0 and in the case of those who utilised their tablets solely for academic purposes, none has CGPA of 4.5 and above but about 33.33% has CGPA of 2.0-4.49. Level of study, and average time spent on studying, are both significant at (p<0.05), while Primary usage was found to be significant at (p<0.1). It was recommended that smartphone usage should be fully incorporated into the educational curriculum in post- secondary and tertiary institution, for enhanced academic performance besides making them readily available at affordable prices at good quality. Educators should be encouraged to be active on social platforms in to enhance students-teacher interactions/engagements. Keywords: Smartphones, Multimedia, Academic performance, Tertiary learners, University of Ilorin. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/14-30-01 Publication date: October 31 st 2023