Exploring Students’ Increased Use of Tablets After Taking Online Courses During the COVID-19 Lockdown

Oct 15, 2026

The study investigates tablet ownership and usage among Chinese foreign language students after taking online courses during the COVID-19 lockdown. Using a quantitative exploratory case-study design, data were collected via a self-reported questionnaire from May 31 to June 6 and 276 valid responses were analyzed with SPSS. Independent-samples t-tests and Fisher’s exact tests were used for inferential and descriptive analyses. Results indicate increased tablet ownership was not driven by online-course implementation, though some students preferred paperless learning and attitudes toward tablets in pedagogy were mixed.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages16

Reading Time40 min

AccessFree to download

Article Info

Abstract

Introduction

Background and research gap

Prior studies on tablets in learning

OPEN ACCESS Research Article Contemporary Educational Technology, 2022, 14(4), ep380 ISSN: 1309-517X (Online) Exploring Students’ Increased Use of Tablets After Taking Online Courses During the COVID-19 Lockdown Yuxiong Zhang 1* 0000-0003-0305-0110 1 Dalian University of Foreign Languages, Dalian, CHINA * [Corresponding author:](Corresponding author: yuxiongzhang@hotmail.com)[ yuxiongzhang@hotmail.com](Corresponding author: yuxiongzhang@hotmail.com) Citation: Zhang, Y. (2022) . Exploring Students’ Increased Use of Tablets After Taking Online Courses During the COVID-19 Lockdown. Contemporary Educational Technology, 14(4), ep380. [https://doi.org/10.30935/cedtech/12283](https://doi.org/10.30935/cedtech/12283) ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT | Received: 5 Apr 2022
Accepted: 17 Jul 2022 | The present study aimed to investigate the ownership and usage of Tablets among Chinese foreign language students. Adopted a quantitative approach, this research was considered a case study with exploratory nature. The data were collected from a self-reported questionnaire between May 31st and June 6th, and 276 valid responses were analyzed utilizing SPSS. Independent samples t-test and Fisher’s exact tests were carried out to perform inferential and descriptive analyses. Findings revealed that augmented ownership of tablets did not result from the implementation of online courses after the outbreak of COVID-19. However, some students demonstrated preferences for paperless learning, whose learning style might have changed during the intensive distance learning process for more than one semester. Still, students’opinions towards the introduction of tablets into pedagogical practice weren’t overall positive; those who did not have or were not willing to purchase tablet devices were more likely to be unsupportive.
Keywords: tablets, COVID-19, individual learning, foreign language learning, paperless learning | | --- | --- | | INTRODUCTION | | During the precipitate pandemic outbreak in 2020, the education system and pedagogical approaches were challenged worldwide as what happened to the other sectors. Up to June 2020, 114 countries faced school closure caused by COVID-19, directly impacting 863,867,333 learners worldwide1. Nevertheless, after resuming the face-to-face classes in the mid-term of the first semester of the 2020-2021 school year, namely from October of 2020 after online courses for 27 weeks, the author noticed an increased use of tablet devices in foreign-language classes by students during the daily teaching activities based on his observations. Many studies are concerned about students’ mental disorders, depression, and anxiety issues during the quarantine (AlAzzam et al., 2021; Fawaz & Samaha, 2021; López Steinmetz et al., 2021; Pourghaznein et al., 2021) . However, no investigation studied the potential changes that occurred on the students’ study habits and learning method, especially regarding the use of tablet devices, after the unprecedented distance learning experience with all subjects included more than one semester. The complete alteration of the learning environment and pedagogical practice based on online course setting leads us to consider any essential relation between distance learning during the national lockdown due to Covid-19 and students’ increasing use of tablets in foreign-language classes, where the didactic strategies are perceived to be traditional with especial focus on memorization and repetition, especially in China (Água-Mel, 2014) . Meanwhile, it was also reported that research on the actual impact of tablet devices on learning is overall limited. Even though plenty of investigators contribute to building the knowledge base of mobile learning, rare attention is focused on tablet devices (Chen & deNoyelles, 2013; Haßler et al., 2016) . Furthermore, it is also believed that severe gaps exist in this field of research, where the empirical studies carried out in 1 Source: [https://

FAQs

What is the main purpose of the study?

To examine tablet ownership and usage among Chinese foreign language students after they took online courses during the COVID-19 lockdown.

How was the data collected and analyzed?

A self-reported questionnaire was administered from May 31 to June 6, yielding 276 valid responses. Analysis used SPSS with independent-samples t-tests and Fisher’s exact tests.

Did online courses during COVID-19 lead to higher tablet ownership?

No. Findings show that increased tablet ownership did not result from implementing online courses after the COVID-19 outbreak.

Oct 15, 2026

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