International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies (iJIM) – eISSN: 1865-7923 – Vol. 14, No. 2, 2020


Paper—Mobile-Heutagogical Practices among Student Teachers: Its Pedagogical Affordances... 

Mobile-Heutagogical Practices among Student Teachers: 

Its Pedagogical Affordances and Challenges  

https://doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v14i02.11819 

Kung-Teck, Wong (), Mazura @ Mastura binti Muhammad,  
Norazilawati binti Abdullah, Analisa Hamdan 
Sultan Idris Education University, Perak, Malaysia 

thomas@fpm.upsi.edu.my 

Abstract—The integration of Information and Communication Technology 

(ICT) in the classroom for learning is becoming important to improve student 

engagement and interaction. This is in line with the educational transformation 

towards achieving Higher Education 4.0 in Malaysia. Education 4.0 (Edu 4.0) is 

in line with the Industrial Revolution 4.0 (4IR) and underpin the Malaysia Edu-

cation Blueprint 2015-2025. There has been a recent surge in published studies 

on Mobile-Heutagogy (M-Heutagogy), with most studies has been conducted in 

developed countries, where the outcomes of the studies have revealed that M-

Heutagogy has significant impacts on Edu. 4.0. Against this backdrop, this paper 

aims to discuss the M-Heutagogy pedagogical affordances of such a tool, the 

challenges that it poses, and the pedagogical change that is entailed for the adop-

tion of the M-Heutagogy in the classroom. As a preliminary investigation in Ma-

laysia, this study was carried out based on the phenomenological perspective of 

selected student teachers concerning the above affordances and challenges of M-

Heutagogy through interviews. It was revealed that the use of such a novel learn-

ing tool helped spur their students’ interest, stimulate their curiosity, and improve 

their confidence in learning scientific concepts. In particular, the use of M-Hueta-

gogy has proven can help to improve student participation in the learning process 

through more intense discussions among student teachers, which led to an im-

proved understanding of learning concepts. However, the main barriers to full 

integration of such a tool in teaching and learning were attributed to the lack of 

technical support, teaching skills and confidence, and suitable facilities.  

Keywords—Mobile-Heutagogy, student teachers, pedagogical change, teaching 

technology 

1 Introduction 

Over recent years, a wide spectrum of technologies has been widely used in the ed-

ucational realm, encompassing all levels of education from preschool education to ter-

tiary education. Such use is not limited to the educational sector as many cutting edge 

technologies have also been used in sectors related to commerce and economy, among 

others. From the historical perspective, the use of technology in the classroom was 

made prominent by the use of the personal computer (PC), which has given a lasting 

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https://doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v14i02.11819
mailto:thomas@fpm.upsi.edu.my


Paper—Mobile-Heutagogical Practices among Student Teachers: Its Pedagogical Affordances... 

impact on the teaching and learning process throughout the world. Invariably, however, 

technology is mainly used as a learning tool for students rather than as a teaching tool 

for teachers [15, 21-23]. Efforts to use technology are gaining traction on a global scale, 

especially in higher institutions and universities. It is well documented in the news that 

the presence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) has some impact on the education 

sector, including higher education [18]. The 4IR means a comprehensive and rapid 

change in the industry that is closely related to the rapid development of technology 

[6]. This revolution is a concept that spread the Internet of Things, Big Data, Artificial 

Intelligence, Augmented Reality, social media, cloud computing, and robotics. This 

means the technology will gradually replace human labor through the use of machines, 

robots and Internet applications in the business and manufacturing world. Since the 

revolution begins to take place in everyday life, especially in the future, the Higher 

Education Institutions (HEI) needs to take on the challenge of developing quality hu-

man capital with tacit knowledge that can be applied in the workplace [11-13, 16]. Be-

sides, PdP 4.0 has been introduced to achieve Higher Education 4.0 that arises from 

4IR and needs several transformations. 

There has been a recent surge in published studies on M-Heutagogy, with most stud-

ies being conducted in developed countries, where the outcomes of the studies have 

revealed that M-Heutagogy has significant impacts on Edu. 4.0 [1-2, 5, 9, 14, 18]. M-

Heutagogy is well documented for its succeeding in the online learning environment. 

Indeed, based on previous research, Blaschke (2012) and Eachempati, KS, Komattil 

and Ismail (2017), to create and cultivate 21st self-determined learners, Heutagogy is 

best implemented with the suitable latest learning and teaching technologies (Mobile 

Apps) such as Google Docs, e-Portfolio, Twitter, Diigo, YouTube, Quizziz, MindMap 

and Wikipedia. Arguably, in the advancements of educational technologies in teaching 

and learning, mobile devices have empowered the user with the ability to interact via 

various social media interfaces for and in learning. 

Overall, heutagogy is self-determined learning that rooted in andragogy and applied 

a holistic approach, such as a learner-centered approach [1, 3, 9]. Heutagogy promotes 

the role of human agency in teaching and learning process [10], which means that learn-

ers are free to determine their own learning, how they learn and how they prove that 

they have mastered the learning topics even though they still need the engagement of 

their teachers or instructors. The heutagogical approach can be viewed as a progression 

from pedagogy to andragogy to heutagogy, with learners likewise progressing in ma-

turity and autonomy [23]. More mature learners require less instructor control and 

course structure and can be more self-directed in their learning, while less mature learn-

ers require more instructor guidance and course scaffolding [2, 3, 17].  

With the advancement of educational technology in teaching and learning, the inte-

gration of mobile learning with heutagogical practices has been proven its effectiveness 

[4, 15, 24-26]. M-Heutagogy is an extension of heutagogy approach which suitable for 

the 21st century and in line with the Education 4.0 concept. With M-Heutagogy, it im-

proves learners’ critical thinking and reflection, increases learners’ motivation and en-

gagement, and learners can control their own learning. Besides that, M-Heutagogy in 

this study also encompassed Education 4.0 (Refer Figure 1).  

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Paper—Mobile-Heutagogical Practices among Student Teachers: Its Pedagogical Affordances... 

 

Fig. 1. The Principle of Mobile-Heutagogy (M-Heutagogy) in this study 

M-Heutagogical practices support an interactive teaching method to enable students 

to learn actively by interacting via various mobile tools simultaneously. Essentially, the 

M-Heutagogy practices allow the learners respond and interact with teachers or educa-

tors. In principle, the difference between the M-Heutagogy and other pedagogical prac-

tices is that the students can be conveniently and easily communicate and give answers 

to the questions prompted by the teachers. As such, the teacher can remain in front of 

the classroom and still be able to interact with the technology. With the use of mobile 

features and tools, the teacher can focus on teaching without having to move around 

constantly, which can distract his or her students. Also, the M-Heutagogy can help the 

teacher to use several media, such as text, audio, video, and graphics, to enrich student 

learning by capitalizing on various senses. The teacher will no longer have to prepare 

and use other teaching tools or devices, such as an audio and video player. Interestingly, 

the teacher can use mobile devices to record short video clips of learning or teaching 

activities.  

Furthermore, through the M-Heutagogical practices, it helps the teacher to make 

learning more meaningful and engaging by connecting such a device to online sources, 

such as websites, YouTube, or Google Maps. Such a connection helps contextualize 

learning in a real-world scenario, allowing them to learn more purposeful. Surely, such 

learning will have a huge and lasting impact on student learning. Moreover, the teacher 

or students can touch and move pictures or objects displayed on the screen, making 

learning more interactive and interesting. In particular, students can interact with their 

friends more readily by writing-learning concepts, ideas, or points on the mobile screen 

and prompting their friends to respond and discuss accordingly. Such a discussion can 

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Paper—Mobile-Heutagogical Practices among Student Teachers: Its Pedagogical Affordances... 

be highly educational as studies have shown that the use of the mobile can help improve 

interactions between the teacher and students, which leads to better academic perfor-

mance [25, 26].  

Most of the studies conducted in the West have shown that the use of the heutagog-

ical practices has made a significant pedagogical change in teaching and learning. Un-

like the traditional blackboard, the new practices are more than a pedagogy approach 

for teachers in that they can be utilized by all students in a classroom. In this regard, 

teachers must adapt their teaching heutagogoy by incorporating various mobile tools in 

their teaching practice, as research has shown that the success of the integration of tech-

nology in a curriculum is heavily dependent on pedagogical practices [23]. As such, 

teachers need to learn and explore the functionalities of the mobile to ensure it can be 

used as both a teaching tool and a learning tool.  

Admittedly, the heutagogical that incorporates the mobile will be different from the 

conventional heutagogy teaching method, with the former being more aligned to con-

structivist learning. With such teaching practices, learning is no longer confined to pre-

senting facts and figures to students in a passive way, but it has more to do with helping 

students to learn independently and develop ideas related to scientific concepts. As 

highlighted by Papadakis (2018), the effective use of the mobile in heutagogical prac-

tice entails a new way of a teaching approach that focuses on the specific use of such a 

novel device. In order to make the mobile-related devices a tool that supports collabo-

ration among students, its use must be beyond than writing words on its screen or pro-

jecting an image. Hence, the teacher has to provide ample opportunities for students to 

help project themselves more prominently in learning sessions by allowing them to use 

the tool individually. In such collaborative learning, the teacher should arrange and 

monitor students’ learning activities to ensure they have a clear focus of a particular 

subject and to achieve the intended learning objectives. The responsibility of the teacher 

is not only to learn and familiarize with the hardware and software of such a learning 

tool, but also to understand how it can be used to contribute to attaining the learning 

objectives in a meaningful manner.  

2 The Study 

Ample evidence can be found in the literature indicating that technology-driven 

learning can help engender diverse learning experiences, such as interactive, coopera-

tive learning, among students, including student teachers. There has been a recent surge 

in published studies on M-Heutagogy, with most studies being conducted in the devel-

oped countries, where the outcomes of the studies have revealed that M-Heutagogy has 

significant impacts on Education. 4.0 (Edu. 4.0) [1-2, 5, 7, 9, 10, 13]. 

In Malaysia, the level of the use of teaching technology among student teachers in 

higher institutions or universities has come under the scrutiny of many scholars, with 

many lamenting what they believed to be low, especially in Malaysia context [7]. Such 

lamentation is hardly surprising as preliminary studies conducted by several researchers 

have shown many lecturers, especially novice, have been quite reluctant to use mobile 

in their lecturing practice. Based on several interview findings, most such educators in 

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Paper—Mobile-Heutagogical Practices among Student Teachers: Its Pedagogical Affordances... 

tertiary institution or universities, they seemed to be grappling with issues of how to 

use the different teaching practices with the most appropriate method. To make matters 

worse, a majority of teacher educators lacked sufficient knowledge and skills to incor-

porate teaching technology in the design of their teaching activities especially related 

to M-Heutagogical practices in their daily instruction. Such teachers also indicated that 

it would almost impossible for them to edit the educational software to cater to the 

needs of student teachers based on different aspects of learning.  

Admittedly, student-teacher have different needs, personalities, and beliefs, which 

have to be taken into account is using technology in teaching and learning. In general, 

most teacher educators were willing to learn new ways of teaching methods such as M-

Heutagogy. To date, several studies have been carried out to determine the use of M-

Heutagogy for student teachers of various backgrounds and courses or programs. Such 

studies revealed that most teacher educators in tertiary institutions or universities have 

related to carrying out M-Heutagogical practices in their teaching and learning.  

Indeed, the level of integration of M-Heutogogical practices among teacher educa-

tors is on alarming stage. Another problem that is impeding the full integration of tech-

nology in teaching and learning stems from the lack of knowledge and skills related M-

Heutagogy. Virtually, many teacher educators do not understand the M-Heutagogy con-

cept and how it can help in self-directed learning. Lack of knowledge and skills regards 

to M-Heutagogy makes implementing quite challenging given that pedagogy behind 

M-Heutagogy is mainly concept which to be mastered before integration could happen.  

As from the informal study findings explained above, the researchers believe that 

the time has come to understand the affordances and challenges of M-Heutagogical 

practices in higher institutions or universities, with which the latter can design their 

teaching activities that are deemed suitable for school students by taking into consider-

ation the various aspects of students’ learning styles, cognitive developments, and in-

telligence.  

Therefore, this study was undertaken to introduce the M-pedagogical practices 

among student teachers, to highlight its advantages, and to identify potential challenges 

that lie ahead in such an endeavor in the Malaysian context.  

3 The Context of the Study and Methodology 

As discussed in the previous section, the M-Heutagogy is a relatively new teaching 

tool for student teachers in tertiary institutions and universities in Malaysia. To deter-

mine the advantages of such teaching practices, the researchers carried out a small-scale 

case study based on the phenomenological perspective of teachers concerning the teach-

ing practice of using the M-Huetagogy in the field of science. Based on the expert opin-

ions of several experienced academics and content experts, the researchers identified 

four (4) student teachers who had an excellent record of practising the M-Heutagogy in 

schools. They have used M-Heutagogical practices in their teaching practice and un-

derstand clearly how it works. They used M-Heutagogical practices as part of their rou-

tine teaching duties in the classroom during their teaching practice times. Such experi-

ence was important to ensure the student teachers would be fully prepared and confident 

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Paper—Mobile-Heutagogical Practices among Student Teachers: Its Pedagogical Affordances... 

to use such a novel teaching practice, as the lack of which could make its integration in 

the teaching and learning would be futile.  

In the data collection stage, the researchers carried out a series of semi-structured 

interviews in which the student teachers were asked several questions to probe their 

opinions regarding the advantages of M-Heutagogy learning and its challenges in im-

plementing the new way of practices.  

Before the data collection stage, the researchers have carried out the tested data col-

lection instruments to ensure the validity of the instrument used. This is vital as data 

collection (semi-structured interview questions) were adapted from several questions 

that had been validated and used in previous studies in the same discipline to identify 

the strength and weakness, and its effectiveness of m-Heutagogy as daily teaching and 

learning. Since the validity of the instrument is an essential process in the initial stage 

of research, content validity, criterion and construct validity of this study had been con-

ducted necessarily by the researchers. The researchers believed that it is ultimately nec-

essary to ensure the validity of content used in an instrument to procure that the items 

correspond to the research objective.  

In the process of testing the validity of the instrument, subject matter experts had 

been given a set of instruments and attached with the objectives of this study on the 

effectiveness of m-Heutagogy. Four (4) subject matter experts have reviewed and com-

mented on the items. Feedbacks and advice were shared by the subject matter experts 

were taken into consideration. Thus, few alterations on the tone of language, paraphras-

ing of difficult or ambiguous words and an appropriate number of items were adjusted 

from the original items. Additionally, the necessary amendments were also made to 

avoid ambiguity and confusion. Hence, respondents would have a better understanding 

of each item, thus producing reliable responses as desired by the study needed to be 

measured. Minor changes to grammatical errors have been done accordingly. Since the 

items in the instrument were adapted from previous literature, the items have been 

broadly and extensively used by many numbers of researchers, thus resulting from pos-

iting high content and criterion validity.  

Reliability, on the other hand, refers to a recurrence of the same process producing 

the same outcome. Subsequently, the results acquired from a pilot study conducted prior 

to the actual experimental design is essential in revising the reliability of an instrument 

used. Thus, researchers have carried out triangulation reliability testing. In the triangu-

lation reliability testing, researchers have to conduct the research at different times and 

locations. Different interviewers have been requested to ask the same questions to the 

participants in different time and location. Based on the result collected, the reliability 

level of the data collected as high as about all the feedbacks from participated respond-

ents were similar.  

Indeed, in order to comply with the research ethic, participants have received Con-

sent Information Sheet regards to the research by means of verbal explanation and at-

tached the consent letter. Participants signed the forms. By having these steps, the par-

ticipants clearly understood the objectives and structures of the research.  

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Paper—Mobile-Heutagogical Practices among Student Teachers: Its Pedagogical Affordances... 

4 Findings and Discussion  

The findings of the interviews are discussed based on three themes, namely the M-

Heutagogical practices in cultivating self-directed learning paradigm, the advantages 

and challenges of the M-Heutagogy as follows: 

4.1 M-Heutagogical practice in cultivating self-directed learning paradigm 

The analysis of the interview data helped the researchers to determine several themes 

related to the teaching process with the use of the M-Heutagogical practices, namely 

the self-directed learning paradigm, didactic support, self-integrated and interactive ac-

tivities, and self-guided assessment. For didactic support, the teachers indicated that 

they mainly used the mobile integrated with heutagogy approach to spur their students’ 

interest, stimulate their curiosity, and improve their confidence in learning scientific 

concepts. The teachers specifically indicated that the mobile-interactive features were 

adequately fun to help students interact with the learning contents. The student teachers 

also said that they used the M-Heutagogy can ensure learning activities take place in-

teractively, which could improve student learning and their focus. By making the mo-

bile as in an integral part of their heutagogical practice, they genuinely believed stu-

dents could engage in active, collaborative learning by using such a novel teaching 

method, such as the latter could share and manipulate texts or objects displayed on the 

touch screen, if they integrated with interactive whiteboards, as they discussed the facts 

or concepts of learning topics. The findings is in line with many previous studies indi-

cated that mobile learning help cultivating self-directed learning. Students are more 

independent and higher autonomy when integrating with technology tools. According 

to Ushioda (2011), autonomy among learners are also expressed within the learners’ 

attitude towards the lesson and are more likely to become willing in the classroom ac-

tivities and there is an ability to show a level of independence in regulating ones’ learn-

ing when educational technology tools were used. It was also apparent that students in 

m-Heutagogy learning classroom started to become more responsible in their own 

learning compared to conventional learning. This change in students’ behaviour could 

be particularly influenced by the availability of contents and access to activity through 

blended learning in the classroom. Students would stop at a point of uncertainty seeking 

for clarification from the teacher as a guidance. These are the most apparent examples 

of autonomy within learners portrayed in the blended learning classroom. 

In terms of the self-assessment-driven practice, the student teachers indicated that 

they had a strong interest in diversifying self-assessment techniques with the use of the 

mobile in heutagogical practices, which could serve as a potent instructional method 

for self-diagnostic, self-formative, and self-summative assessments. The former can be 

carried out by involving students to determine their prior knowledge. Self-formative 

assessment can be performed by providing students hands-on experiences of a phenom-

enon and the self-summative assessment can be conducted by assessing students’ ex-

planations of the findings of their investigation into learning concepts.  

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Paper—Mobile-Heutagogical Practices among Student Teachers: Its Pedagogical Affordances... 

4.2 The advantages of the M-Heutagogical practices 

The research subjects were prompted to highlight the experiences in integrating M-

Heutagogy in the teaching and learning process. A majority of them agreed that teach-

ing with such an instructional teaching method was highly efficacious, especially in 

teaching the basic concepts based on the National Curriculum Standard provided by the 

Malaysian education system. Such a finding concurs with previous statements, empha-

sizing the many benefits of the mobile related educational technology tools in teaching 

and learning [23, 25]. For example, teachers can connect mobile to online sources, such 

as news websites, YouTube, and Google Maps, from which the latest and accurate in-

formation can be obtained. Using such information, students’ assignments or tasks will 

be free from errors or mistakes, effectively making their works valid and reliable. This 

assertion is consistent with the findings of a study by [1-2, 23, 25], indicating that the 

integration of mobile or related educational technology in teaching practice can help 

create a flexible space to support interactive communication between a teacher and his 

or her students in exploring scientific concepts using relevant latest information. Given 

this flexibility, it was hardly surprising to note that most of the student teachers inter-

viewed said that the M-Heutagogical practice made their classes not only interactive 

but also interesting as opposed to conventional teaching. Also, they indicated that with 

the mobile features available in a notebook, hand phone, iPad, or related mobile devices 

were very useful in that relevant images, pictures, graphics could be accessed with ease, 

and it had several examples of the latest interactive activities. In addition, they could 

use the online toolkit to update information.  

More revealingly, the student teachers contended that diverse modalities of learning 

supported by the mobile-related tools and its innovative features would have a huge 

impact on motivating today’s young students. Such contention is to be expected given 

that such a novel teaching tool can support text, audio, video, animation, and graphics, 

with which teachers can use to explain scientific concepts or principles more effectively 

to their students. From the cognitive standpoint, teachers can teach their students based 

on their learning styles with the use of multimedia materials and contents. Such relevant 

materials can be easily accessed given the capability of the mobile to connect to the 

Internet, through which information can be located and downloaded. It is worth to note 

that what sets apart the mobile or other technologies that integrated with Heutagogy is 

that the former is easy to engage with students, allowing the teacher to remain in front 

of the class while interacting with his or her students. In the interviews, the teachers 

highlighted such a capability that they found to be extremely helpful in helping them to 

communicate with their students without any restraints or barriers, which are common 

in the conventional teaching methods.  

These endless opportunities that a technology encompasses can perform better than 

is expected with equal support from face-to-face learning where it helps in enhancing 

learning as to cater different learning styles in a classroom. The purpose sole of tech-

nology usage in this paper is manipulated to suit a lesson rather than displacing the 

teacher’s role in a classroom to make lesson more motivating, engaging and updated 

with the current needs of today’s learners. Moreover, teaching and learning materials 

could be saved and kept on a hard disc, a thumb drive, or software gallery, which could 

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Paper—Mobile-Heutagogical Practices among Student Teachers: Its Pedagogical Affordances... 

later be edited or updated for future learning activities. One of the student teachers in-

terviewed highlighted this unique feature in M-Heutagogy that allowed him to reuse 

diagrams and pictures in other classes that followed. 

Coupled with the ability to support multimedia presentations, the M-Heutagogical 

practice could become a potent teaching and learning tool that enhances student learn-

ing. Also, easy navigation enabled them to return to any part of a learning presentation 

to reinforce their students’ understanding of learning concepts that students found dif-

ficult to comprehend. With such a learning tool, students’ works could be readily ac-

cessed to be used as references in the learning activities.  

4.3 Pedagogical challenges  

Like other educational teaching methods, the M-Heutagogical practice is not without 

any challenges, which are more intense in teaching students at the school level. Invari-

ably, issues regarding technical support, class management, and teachers’ knowledge 

and skills have been impeding the smooth integration of M-Heutagogy in the teaching 

and learning process. For example, as highlighted in the interviews, the student teachers 

were quite hesitant at first to adopt a new teaching approach or instruction that was 

more appropriate for teaching with the Heutagogy paradigm, which could be attributed 

to their negative perceptions, believing that the use of mobile (e-learning) was highly 

technical. Such perceptions were not without reasons, and rightly so, as there were sev-

eral occasions in which they had to seek help from technicians to help deal with some 

technical issues. Hence, student teachers must be given sufficient technical support to 

ensure they can use the mobile-related educational technology tools with ease and com-

fort. Otherwise, teaching can be severely interrupted or delayed, forcing them to revert 

to conventional teaching methods.  

The interviews also revealed that the choice of a classroom for teaching and learning 

using the M-Heutagogy was an important topic of discussion among the teachers. For 

example, one of the student teachers argued that such mobile-related educational teach-

ing tools were not suitable to be used in existing classrooms, as the configuration of 

classroom facilities, such as tables, desks, and lights and the available spaces prevent 

students from interactive freely in the process of implementation of M-Heutagogical 

practices. To further compound such a problem, lights entering into the classroom were 

simply too bright that obscure texts and graphics displayed on the mobile device’s 

screen. Cleary, such problems were not unexpected given that the design of existing 

classrooms is based on the conventional teaching approach which does not involve the 

use of such a teaching tool.  

Notwithstanding, classroom setting is the vital in conducting m-Heutagogy prac-

tices. According to participated teachers viewpoints, they have to come early to class-

rooms if they were to use the M-Heutagogy approach effectively, as they needed to 

make some minor physical adjustments to the classroom settings, such as rearrange the 

table setting for discussions and the electric power available especially related to class-

room setting. This finding empirically validated the previous study done by [23-23]. 

Clearly, all the important points discussed above show that the successful integration 

of M-Heutagogy in teaching and learning relies heavily on the preparedness of teachers 

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Paper—Mobile-Heutagogical Practices among Student Teachers: Its Pedagogical Affordances... 

to learn and use the new way of teaching method, such as the mobile-related educational 

tools, which in turn entails them to adopt a new teaching practice. In this regard, assert 

that teachers need a piece of new knowledge and skills to integrate mobile in heutagogy 

teaching method to optimize the M-Heutagogy in practice [21]. They also need to un-

dergo professional development training to help them make a smooth transition from 

existing pedagogical practice to a new one that focuses on technology integration. In 

the interviews, the teachers indicated that using such a novel M-Heutagogy had entailed 

them to make such a transition. Such finding is consistent with other findings of studies 

on technology integration that revealed the introduction the mobile in heutagogy 

method will lead to a change in the instructional approach [8, 13]. Admittedly, the op-

timal use of the mobile in heutagogy practices will require substantial investment in 

terms of training to help practicing teachers to acquire the skills and confidence to in-

tegrate mobile in heutagogy paradigm.  

5 Conclusion 

In this study, student teachers’ perspective of the affordances and challenges in using 

the M-Heutagogy was explored through a series of interviews. From the standpoint of 

instructional practice, it was revealed that the use of such a novel teaching method 

(Heutagogy) with the integration of mobile learning helped spur their students’ interest, 

stimulate their curiosity, and improve their confidence in learning scientific concepts. 

More importantly, they asserted that M-Heutagogical practices helped improve student 

participation in the learning process through more intense discussions among students, 

which led to an improved understanding of learning concepts and cultivate self-directed 

learning environments.  

In terms of benefits, virtually all the teachers viewed that the integration of mobile 

learning in heutagogy teaching approach to be highly beneficial, given its ability to 

support interactive, flexible, and multi-modal learning. With the capability to connect 

to the Internet and the support for multimedia presentation (consisting of text, graphics, 

animation, audio, and video), learning was made more rich, appealing, and convinc-

ingly meaningful. Hence, the M-Heutagogical practices helped spur their students’ in-

terest, stimulate their curiosity, and improve their confidence in learning scientific con-

cepts.  

The results obtained from this study sanctions some of the aforementioned benefits 

identified in the previous literatures. Among the benefits of m-Heutagogy learning in 

this study reveal that the instruction allowed room for knowledge exploration among 

students and teachers, the ability to reduce boredom and lethargic in classrooms as les-

sons were very engaging and interesting especially related to the features of instant 

feedbacks from both teacher and learners, cost effective in terms of materials and con-

tents used in the lessons, as well as encouraging creativity among learners through chal-

lenging classroom activities. Apart from that, m-heutagogy learning in this study is also 

seen as a powerful learning tool to the teacher where teaching materials were made 

possible online. Having that, learners can access it anytime and anywhere. Additionally, 

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Paper—Mobile-Heutagogical Practices among Student Teachers: Its Pedagogical Affordances... 

record keeping of students work was also made feasible thus possible in gradually re-

ducing teacher’s workload. 

From the perspective of M-Heutagogical challenges, the teachers argued that the 

main barriers to the full integration of mobile-related educational tool in teaching and 

learning were attributed to personal and organizational factors. For the former, the stu-

dent teachers contended that training and guidance were critical to allaying initial fears 

or hesitation in employing heutagogy teaching approach with mobile devices, which is 

to be expected when someone is exposed to the unfamiliar condition. For the latter, the 

student teachers implored that school administrators take the necessary measures to fa-

cilitate the smooth integration of mobile learning in heutagogy approach are essential 

and vital to embark the benefit of M-Heutagogy teaching approach. The provision of 

suitable and adequate school facilities, technical support, and professional development 

training will able to reduce the resistance of change among practicing teachers. In par-

ticular, teachers have to train how to integrate mobile devices in heutagogy teaching 

approach, which as a tool for a wide spectrum of learning activities, such as a collabo-

rative tool to support cooperative learning and cultivate self-directed learning paradigm.  

Overall, the findings of this study strongly suggest that there will be several chal-

lenges in maximizing the integration of mobile devices into heutagogy teaching ap-

proach in daily teaching and learning, requiring teachers to make the necessary changes 

in their heutagogy practice that will be more attuned to teaching using related mobile-

related educational technology tools. Clearly, more studies are entailed, preferably on 

a larger scale, to fully determine the full impact of M-Heutagogical practice of learning 

throughout Malaysia.  

6 Acknowledgement 

Great appreciation is communicated to Sultan Idris Education University (UPSI), 

Perak, Malaysia, for the research grant (2019-0122-107-01) and the Ministry of Educa-

tion (MOE) Malaysia for the support of this research. 

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8 Authors 

Kung-Teck, Wong is an Assoc. Prof at Faculty of Education and Human Develop-

ment, Sultan Idris Education University (UPSI), Malaysia. Prior to joining UPSI, he 

was a senior teacher in government schools. He completed his Ph.D. from University 

Malaysia Sabah and Post-Doctoral at the University of South Australia, Australia 

(UniSA). He has published extensively in local and international journals. He also 

serves as a reviewer of several local and ISI and SCOPUS indexed journals. In the past 

five years, he has secured many public and private research funding. Wong is interested 

in statistic studies and the application of SPSS and AMOS -structural equation model-

ing in his writing articles and research. 

Mazura Mastura Muhammad is an Assoc. Prof at the Faculty of Languages and 

Communication, Sultan Idris Education University (UPSI), Malaysia. She pursued his 

Ph.D. at the Lancaster University, United Kingdom. Mazura’s areas of expertise are 

applied linguistics, corpus linguistics and policy research. In the past five years, she has 

secured various private and international research funding. 

Norazilawati Abdullah, Assoc. Professor, a presentable, self-motivated and confi-

dent lecturer with extensive knowledge on education. Possessing excellent counselling, 

listening and general communication skills, along with the ability to communicate to 

students in simple ways on matters regarding teaching and learning. Having exceptional 

multi-tasking and organizational skills, all of which are imperative when working 

closely with colleagues. With an already successful academic track record, now looking 

to accomplish further success in the area of teaching, supervising, research, publication 

and consultation with a progressive employer such us Sultan Idris Education University 

(UPSI). 

Analisa Hamdan holds a B. Ed. Information Technology (Honours) from Universiti 

Utara Malaysia (UUM) in 2007 and a Master of Education from Open University Ma-

laysia (OUM) in 2019. She is currently a Ph.D. student of Instructional Technology 

142 http://www.i-jim.org

https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2018.1542318
https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2018.1542318
https://doi.org/10.1504/ijmlo.2018.095130
https://doi.org/10.4108/eai.10-4-2018.156382
https://doi.org/10.1504/ijmlo.2019.10016617
https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2010.538701
https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2010.538701


Paper—Mobile-Heutagogical Practices among Student Teachers: Its Pedagogical Affordances... 

Education from the Faculty of Human Development, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris 

(UPSI), Malaysia. Her professional interests include mobile learning, personalized 

learning environments, information and communication technologies (ICT), educa-

tional technology, and e-learning. She has won with Gold & Silver medals in the Na-

tional University Carnival on E-Learning 2014 (NUCEL 2014). She has over than 10 

journal articles published in national and international journals and conferences.  

Article submitted 2019-10-04. Resubmitted 2019-11-04. Final acceptance 2019-11-05. Final version pub-
lished as submitted by the authors. 

iJIM ‒ Vol. 14, No. 2, 2020 143