Smartphone Use, Experience of Learning Environment, and Academic Performance among University Students: A Descriptive Appraisal

Table 4

Summary of hypotheses and study results.

	Hypotheses	Key findings	Results
	1. Gender and smartphone use: (i) Hypothesis 1: there is an association between gender and the use of a smartphone for social networking.	(i) More than 89% of male students and 86% of female students use their smartphones for social networking.	(i) Hypothesis 1 is rejected as there is no significant association between gender and smartphone use for social networking.
	(ii) Hypothesis 2: there is an association between gender and smartphone use for downloading and reading course materials.	(ii) Female students outnumbered male students by roughly ten percent in terms of using smartphones to download and read course materials.	(ii) Hypothesis 2 is accepted as there is a significant association between gender and smartphone use for downloading and reading course materials.
	(iii) Hypothesis 3: there is an association between gender and smartphone use for contacting peers and lecturers for academic assistance.	(iii) Students contacted their lecturers through smartphones only when their academic needs required them to do so or when their peers could not provide satisfactory responses to their academic queries.	(iii) Hypothesis 3 is rejected as there is no significant difference between male and female students in regard to contacting lecturers or peers for academic assistance
	2. Year of study and smartphone use: (i) Hypothesis 4: there is an association between the year of study and the smartphone use for social networking.	(i) First-year students outnumbered the final year students by nearly 18% in terms of smartphone use for social networking.	(i) Hypothesis 4 is accepted as there is a significant association between the year of study and smartphone use for social networking.
	(ii) Hypothesis 5: there is an association between the year of study and smartphone use for reading course materials.	(ii) More than 91% of the final year students used smartphones to read course materials. Only 49.7% of first-year students used smartphones for the same purpose.	(ii) Hypothesis 5 is accepted as there is an association between the year of study and smartphone use for reading course materials.
	(iii) Hypothesis 6: there is an association between the year of study and smartphone use for contacting lecturers for academic assistance.	(iii) Experienced students (final year) tend to contact lecturers for academic assistance more than the first-year students.	(iii) Hypothesis 6 is accepted as there is an association between year of study and smartphone use tor contacting lecturers for academic assistance.
	3. Smartphone use and performance outcome: (i) Hypothesis 7: there is an association between reading course materials using smartphones and performance outcome (CGPA)	(i) Students who used smartphones for reading course materials seemed to perform better than those who did not.	(i) Hypothesis 7 is accepted as there is a significant association between smartphone use for reading course materials and the performance outcome of students.