A case study of students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards BYOD and its use within their history classrooms

In recent years, laptop and ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD) programs have become an integral part of teaching and learning in many Australian schools. For history teachers, the presence of BYOD in the classroom potentially provides the opportunity to align two key teaching goals: historical research skills; and information, communication and technology (ICT) skills. However, there is a dearth of literature that focuses on BYOD for history teaching and learning. This paper reports on the findings of a case study examining Year 9 students’ (13-15-year-olds) and teachers’ attitudes towards the uses of BYOD in their history classes. The findings are from a larger study that examined the way that BYOD was being used for the teaching and learning of historical research skills online. This study uses reflexive thematic analysis to analyse student questionnaires where students reflected on their learning and attitudes. Teachers completed questionnaires and participated in semi-structured interviews. This study has found that the presence of BYOD has heightened an underlying constructivist approach to history teaching. Both students and teachers greatly value the access that BYOD provides for student-centred historical inquiry, as well as valuing BYOD as a perceived labour saver. However, participants seemed to underestimate the role that BYOD is playing in narrowing students’ understanding of history to facts about the past. Despite the limits of its small sample size, this case study has important implications for history educators, which are discussed.