







































Communication, Society and Media 
ISSN 2576-5388 (Print) ISSN 2576-5396 (Online) 

Vol. 1, No. 1, 2018 
www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm 

44 

Original Paper 

Using Mobile Devices to Access Social Media Networks: 

Students Learning through Web Quest Technique  
Abdelwahed Elsafi1* 

1 College of Education, University of Bahri, Sudan 
* Abdelwahed Elsafi, College of Education, University of Bahri, Sudan 

 

Received: April 24, 2018         Accepted: May 12, 2018        Online Published: May 24, 2018 

doi:10.22158/csm.v1n1p44                     URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v1n1p44 

 

Abstract 

This study aims to explore the effect of mobile devices and social media networks supported with Web 

Quest on student’s communication and motivation skills. A web Quest was used for implementing the 

study as a way that enables learners to research on the web to navigate digital learning materials. This 

study presents the findings on students’ perspectives when searching the social media networks via 

their mobile devices following the Web Quest steps for achieving learning activities. The study follows 

the qualitative approach, the student’s used mobile devices to accomplish the learning tasks. The data 

were collected through a student questionnaire. The findings indicated that the use of mobile devices 

and social media networks provided opportunities for engaging in learning and increased students’ 

cooperation. The results also indicated that students enjoyed and appreciated the Web Quest technique. 

Additionally, students recognized the importance of using mobile devices as tools for education 

purposes, and acquired the values of group collaboration. 

Keywords 

social networks, mobile devices, web quest 

 

1. Introduction 

The development of computers and wireless technology have changed the way of people life and 

communication, especially social networking sites and mobile devices that are used for sharing 

information and communication among different people around the world. These types of technologies 

have increased communication and interaction among people in the world, especially students in an 

educational institution. Selwyn (2012) in his research on social media in higher education reported that 

the most significant of social media networks for higher education is the use of social media for 

educational purpose which will provide the students with a new learning environment, and increase 



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their learning motivation and communication. Many researchers like Guy (2012) pointed out the use of 

mobile devices and social media networks were increasingly becoming vital learning tools to be used 

alongside the traditional learning environment to support instructors to develop the learning materials. 

The use of mobile technologies will meet the new generations making it interesting for them, and will 

cater to the modern school environment. As a result, this situation encourages many educational 

institutions to implement social media and mobile devices as learning tools to increase learning 

performance, and to develop the learning environment. Mason and Rennie (2008) stated that, there 

were many social media networks which were considered as educational tools for example; Wikipedia, 

blogger, folksonomy sites such as del.icio.us and Flicker, YouTube, Google doc and relevant websites. 

These tools enable students to use them both inside and outside the classroom, students can research or 

navigate for accessing learning materials, collecting data from the internet, discussing a subject idea 

with their colleagues, sharing videos and photos, publishing their educational works, and completing 

their teaching and learning tasks. Regarding implementing Web Quest in teaching and learning 

activities, there were many studies that pointed out , the Web Quests have a positive impact on students 

learning collaboration, motivation, problems solving, and engaging. Moreover, the Web Quest was 

considered as an effective way for promoting students higher critical thinking (Drozd & Donoghue, 

2007; Gülbahar et al., 2010). Web Quest is an activity based on constructivism learning theory. The 

learners build their own skills and knowledge by practicing. In this study, the learners worked in groups, 

in the way that enables them to discuss and participate in order to create more knowledge, and then 

reflect what they have learnt through the Web Quest tasks or activities. In order to increase student’s 

communication and collaboration skills, the study follows the Web Quest as a way of building learning 

materials on the web and making it accessible for the students, and then the student works in a 

cooperative manner in the learning activities. Meanwhile the study focused on using mobile devices to 

access social media networks for educational purposes.  

 

2. Related Work 

The rapid evolution in the era of web-based and mobile technologies bring new opportunities for both 

teachers and students for achieving their academic purposes (Janosch, 2013). In addition to the 

face-to-face classroom, the teachers can prepare learning materials cloud in an online learning 

environment with different learning context, to be accessed by the learners, and the students can use 

their mobile devices to navigate or research following the links provided by their teachers for 

completing learning activities. Many researchers have reported the potential of using cell phones as 

instructional tools to be used in educational settings (Feng-Kuang et al., 2015). In the study that was 

conducted by Begum (2011) which aimed to explore the students’ prospects using cell phones as 

instructional tools, the study findings reported that, the cell phone has great potential as an instructional 

tool that enables users to achieve a variety of educational activities and purposes. Moreover, the use of 



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mobile devices will make the learning environment more meaningful and increase student 

communication skills (Okunbor & Retta, 2008). Other researchers like Cakir (2015) stated that, mobile 

phones offer unique functions including Short Message Service (SMS), voice-messaging, Multimedia 

Messaging Service (MMS), internet access, video recording, voice recording, MP3/MP4 player, digital 

camera, and capabilities to access social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp 

etc. All these functions (Table 1) could be used for teaching and learning purposes to make educational 

learning environments more attractive as well as promoting students higher critical thinking. The term 

social networks is used to refer to any Web sites that enable users to articulate a network of connections 

and accessing information, news, status updates, post comments, photos, or other forms of content 

(Steinfield et al., 2012; Dewing, 2010). Tiryakioglu and Erzurum (2011) stated that, the concept of 

social media refers to platforms such as social networks site, blogs or micro-blogs, and forums where 

self-generated content of users are shared by the user like a publisher. Nowadays, many education 

institutions “universities, colleges, schools”, have been using social networking tools for developing 

the learning environments, and to achieve the teaching and learning purposes. Many researchers have 

argued that the use of social network technology tools for learning and teaching has positive impacts on 

students learning (Veletsianos, 2011; Parise & Crosina, 2012; Almu & Buhari, 2014). Using online 

social networks as educational platforms may support learners to combine social connection with other 

classmates and support engaging while they perform their learning activities (Greenhow, 2011; 

Browning et al., 2011; Mayisela, 2013); so far, they can access digital learning materials located on the 

web. Therefore, using mobile devices and social networking tools could provide educational 

opportunities for students to access course content, and interact with instructors and colleagues 

wherever they are. Accordingly, this study aimed to explore student’s communication and motivation 

using mobile devices as tools, the learning method was implemented through the Web Quest to provide 

students with a good learning environment that increases students learning motivation and 

communication.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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Table 1. Mobile Tools and Functions 

Mobile Tools           Function 

SMS                                                                                       To send text messages 

Camera         To take a photo 

MMS         To send photo and video 

Recorder         For recording sound/video  

MP3/MP4         For listing what was already recorded  

Memory          For data storage  

Apps          For different purposes (e.g.communication) 

Browsers          To navigate the Internet 

GPS To provides geolocation and time information 

QR Code To scan and generate for accessing information 

 

2. Method 

The purpose of this study mainly was to explore the potential of mobile devices and social media 

network in promoting students’ communication and motivation. To evaluate the effectiveness of this 

study, the student questionnaire was conducted for undergraduate students-electrical engineering course 

to gather students’ perspective after completed the course. The data were analyzed using Statistical 

Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).  

2.1 Procedures 

The procedures of this study were conducted for undergraduate students in technological college, 

located in Sudan, the data of this study back to 2014, when students were studied an electrical 

engineering subject, which aimed to provide students with a rich online learning environments, to be 

accessed using their mobile devices. In this study, the stages of Web Quest were implemented, and 

students using mobile devices for accessing online learning materials. At the beginning, the learning 

materials were collected and developed on the “Blogger”, accordingly the social networks and other 

resources that support students learning were recommended. Moreover, the students were orientated on 

how mobile devices can be used. The procedures follow the Web Quest strategy were described below:  

(1) Introduction: This section typically provides the students brief information on the topic “electrical 

engineering ” to become aware of the learning subject.  

(2) Task: This section of the Web Quest includes various activities that should be achieved by the 

students as groups, the students were notified on what they are supposed to accomplish.  

(3) Resources: Students were provided with links to high-quality Internet-based resources, which help 

them to complete their learning activities.  

(4) Process: This section outlined the steps that students need to follow as well as the resources that 

students need to achieve the tasks. Also, this section of the Web Quest contains many of social 



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networks sites such as Ficker, Quia and YouTube which enable students accessing to learning materials 

relevant to the learning activities.  

(5) Evaluation: The evaluation section of the Web Quest requires all students to participate in the final 

exam that was created online through “Quiz maker see 

https://www.onlinequizcreator.com/log-in/item114?logout=1”, additionally, the evaluation section 

includes the questionnaire used to explore the student motivation.  

(6) Conclusion: At the end of the course, students were requested to send SMS (text) messages to the 

teachers as feedback to inform them about the course information acquisition.  

This study implemented a variety of social media networks, accessed by mobile. The teaching and 

learning strategy was the Web Quest technique as described earlier. At the end of the course, the 

students asked to respond on their perspective through a questionnaire (Table 2).  

2.2 Participants 

To encourage students to incorporate social networks and mobile devices benefits into the learning 

activities, 25 undergraduate students at Wadmdni Technical College in Sudan participated in this study. 

The participants have mobile devices and familiar accessing online learning materials.  

2.3 Measuring Tools 

The method of data collection used in this study was a questionnaire, the data were collected in one 

week after the students completed the course, and they were examined online through the online social 

media networks, the students received email, text message “requested them to fill the questionnaire 

which was designed to gain students’ perspectives on using social media networking and mobile 

devices”. Table 2 shows the student’s questionnaire reflection.  

 

3. The Results 

Table 2 shows the results of the questionnaire of students’ perspective, using mobile devices and social 

media networks. From the statistics, the results shown that most of the students felt satisfied. Among 

them, majority of the respondent’s use social networking websites (mean = 3.7 (1.38)). And also, most 

of respondent’s engage themselves using mobile learning (mean = 4 (1.14)), and the guidance provided 

by mobile learning (mean = 4.4 (0.81)). The student questionnaire also shows that the majority of 

them,confirmed that, they explored new tools for learning (mean = 3.9 (1.10)), and these new ways of 

learning makes them want to know more about web-based learning (mean = 3.8 (1.17)). 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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Table 2. Results of the Questionnaire of Students’ Perspective 

Questionnaire Item Mean  S. D 

Use Social network websites help to engage.  3.7 1.38 

Use social networking provides better learning environments.  3.3 1.33 

I felt very interestingly when using social networks to achieve my learning task. 3.4 1.32 

Social media networking increases my understanding.  3.7 1.37 

Social networks increase my learning motivation.  3.6 1.05 

With mobile learning, I can achieve my learning task more quickly . 3.5 1.14 

M-learning, encourage collaborative work. 3.5 1.26 

Using M-learning save my time. 3.2 1.04 

I feel engaged while using mobile learning.  4 1.14 

Learning with social networks was more interesting than traditional learning. 3.1 1.21 

The guidance provided by the Mobile learning is easy to understand and follow. 4.4 0.81 

The new way of learning makes me want to know more about web-based 

learning.  

3.8 1.17 

I explored new tools for learning.  3.9 1.10 

 

4. Discussion 

This study primarily aims to explore the effect of mobile devices and social media network supported 

with Web Quest on the students’ communication and motivation. The results indicated that, the Web 

Quest learning environment motivated students. This result is supported with other studies that reported 

the positive effect of the Web Quest implemented on students learning (Aina & Sofowora, 2013; 

Abu-Elwan, 2007). The results also revealed that, the Web Quest learning environment was motivated 

students to work collaboratively and in groups discussion, so that the students were gained the values 

of cooperative work, taking the learning responsibility and developing the technology skills. 

Additionally, the results revealed that, the use of mobile devices accessing social media networks were 

better learning environment which help students to feel very interesting. These findings similar to the 

study conducted by Feng-Kuanget et al. (2015) found that, the use of mobile devices as educational 

tools accessing digital learning materials were more enjoyable for students. Additionally, when the 

students use their mobile devices accessing social websites (social media learning), their responses 

indicated that, the mobile devices enable them to perform learning activities more quickly and save 

their time. This result supported by the result of study conducted by Hegazi and Eltayeb (2014), their 

study concludes that mobile learning technologies meet learning purposes in the term of providing 

students advantages to perform learning activities more quickly. At the end of studying the course (in 

section of the conclusion), the participants sent messages to the teacher to reflect on their impression 

and motivation about the course, their messages have stated positive impression on the use of mobile 



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and social media based Web Quest Technique as method of learning. Moreover, the statements of 

students shown highly motivation such as “I learned something new, I developed my technology skills, 

I like this way of teaching, I learned from my colleagues, etc.”. The author has to state that, the new 

generations of the students are very familiar with using mobile technologies and mobile devices are 

becoming part of their everyday life. Such conditions are very useful for teachers, educators, or 

instructional designers to provide students learning accessed by their mobile devices. Therefore, the 

instructors, teachers, educators must develop their digital learning skills to provide students learning to 

be accessed by their mobile devices. 

 

5. Conclusion and Limitation 

This study concludes that using Mobile Devices to Access Social Media Networks based on the Web 

Quest, increased students learning motivation and cooperation as well as provide them with a better 

learning environment. On the other hand, the values of using mobile devices for learning purposes were 

achieved during the students implemented mobile devices. In the term of the limitation, the study is 

limited to the small number of participants and only used a motivation questionnaire, instead of other 

data collection, for the future studies the author recommended that, the numbers of participants should 

be increased and studies will have to be focused on quantitative studies to examine students during 

learning activities. 

 

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	doi:10.22158/csm.v1n1p44                     URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/csm.v1n1p44

