Using reflective practices to explore postgraduate students self-directed learning readiness in mobile learning platform and task-centered activity

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore postgraduate students’ self-directed learning (SDL) readiness using Mobile learning (M-learning) in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a platform and task-centred activity. Reflective practice is used to measure students SDL readiness. This study is qualitative in nature. The research employed thematic analysis method, which involved systematic coding processes, entailing coding, finding categories and themes. Hence, 34 postgraduate students from a public university were selected via a purposive sampling method. They were initially introduced to M-learning course content in FutureLearn (MOOCs) platform, followed by reflective practices. Pre-reflective practices happened before students were enlisted into the M-learning process, During-reflective process in FutureLearn platform and Post-reflective upon completion of the task-centered activity. The findings revealed that most of these students were not sure of their own readiness to take on SDL in the M-learning platform during the pre-reflective stage. However, most of them were able to monitor their own readiness at the During-reflective process. Subsequently, they made progress in adopting and self-evaluating their own performance by completing the task-centered activity successfully. Therefore, the contribution of this study is on constructing reflective practices based on three different stages. Hence, the reflective approach practice has given students insight on their own learning capabilities and readiness for SDL in the mobile platform.