Mobile Technology in Mathematics: Students’ Perspective towards Their
Cognitive Styles and Academic Ability
Sari Herlina, Aulia Sthephani
Department of Mathematics Education, Universitas Islam Riau, Pekanbaru, Indonesia
Keywords:
Mobile Technology, Mathematics, Cognitive Styles, Academic Ability
Abstract:
The aim of this research was to look at student’s perspectives in mathematics learning who had been applied
mathematical learning assisted by mobile technology based on cognitive styles and academic ability. The type
of research is Mixed Method, which was a combination of qualitative and quantitative. The sample in this
study was students in the even semester of the academic year 2017/2018 in the calculus II course who received
mathematics learning with using mobile technology. The instruments were questionnaires of interest in using
mobile technology and interviews. The data analysis technique carried out was the analysis of qualitative data
for data from interviews and quantitative data analysis for data from the questionnaire of interest in learning
mathematics after using mobile technology. The results showed that the perspective of interest in mathematics
learning by mobile technology was in the moderate category, meaning that almost all students were interested
in mathematics learning by this mobile learning application. The interest in mathematics learning with mobile
technology in terms of academic ability was high, medium and low ability, while the interest in mathematics
learning with mobile learning applications in terms of cognitive styles learning, that is field dependent and
field independent, had a view of interests that almost the same, this is indicated because in general, the average
questionnaire score is in the ”medium” category. This is also supported by the results of interviews in which
students were very interested if this application is used in mathematics learning, and they also hoped that it
will also be developed in different subjects.
1 INTRODUCTION
Technological advances can provide new methods
of learning. It provides a new challenge for
teaching staff or educators to be able to use
optimally and provide new learning experiences for
students. In some education institutions, the use
of technology has been widely used such as online
scoring systems, online registration, online credits
programming printing, payment of online education
fees, and others. Those utility of mobile devices
are currently developing, including Android, iPads
and Tablets. Mobile devices today are not luxurious
items anymore and have become common daily thing
making this mobile device can be interesting in the
learning process in the classroom (Skillen, 2015).
The learning process in the classroom is an
interaction between teachers and students or students
with other students. The good quality of learning will
certainly support the quality of education. However,
the world of education continues to move in terms
of creating interactive media and learning methods in
a comprehensive manner. Hence, educators should
concern the technological advancements in order to
achieve quality education goals.
Recently, higher technology enthusiasts can be
seen from the results of existing surveys. Based on
the survey results of the Indonesian Internet Service
Entrepreneurs Association (APJII), the profile of
internet use in Indonesia was obtained in 2014 at
34.9% and 78.5% of all internet users living in the
western part of Indonesia. Regarding internet-based
technology, 85% of total users in Indonesia access the
internet using mobile phones as stated by Pusakom
in (Herlina and Istikomah, 2018). Based on the age
of the user, the majority of internet users are 18-25
years old, which is equal to almost half of the total
internet users in Indonesia, which is 49% and 60%
who use mobile phones to access the internet.Based
on the results of other surveys, the highest demand
for mobile applications (StatCounter, 2016), can be
seen in the following figure:
Based on the results of the questionnaire about the
use of computers and mobile phones distributed to 50
146
Herlina, S. and Sthephani, A.
Mobile Technology in Mathematics: Students’ Perspective towards Their Cognitive Styles and Academic Ability.
DOI: 10.5220/0009096601460151
In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Social, Economy, Education and Humanity (ICoSEEH 2019) - Sustainable Development in Developing Country for Facing Industrial
Revolution 4.0, pages 146-151
ISBN: 978-989-758-464-0
Copyright
c
 2020 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

Figure 1: This caption has more than one line so it has to be
justified.
students of FKIP UIR mathematics education, there
are 3 people who do not have computers/laptops, all
students have their mobile phones using them for the
internet, accessing social media, and entertainment
(Herlina and Istikomah, 2018). To access the internet,
36 out of 50 people access with personal data
packages and 16 other people use Wi-Fi provided by
the university.
Based on the survey data mentioned above,
it shows the community’s high interest in using
technology. The high interest in using this
mobile application is integrated with student interest
in using applications in their learning process.
However, can the differences in individual abilities
and differences in the learning styles of each
individual be overcome by the application of this
mobile learning technology? Thus, based on the
survey results researchers are interested in conducting
research to see the interest perspective of mathematics
education students who have implemented mobile
technology-assisted mathematics learning based on
academic abilities and cognitive style. By knowing
student interest in mobile learning applications,
educators can develop mobile technology application
or mobile learning in mathematics learning in order to
improve the quality of education.
2 RESEARCH METHOD
The type of research used in this study is mix
method research (Creswell, 2014). The research
was conducted at the Mathematics Education Study
Program FKIP Riau Islamic University, which was
addressed at Jalan Kaharudin Nasution No. 113
Perhentian Marpoyan, Pekanbaru. This research
was carried out in the Even Semester 2017/2018
academic year, which was in February 2018 until
May 2018. The research sample was students in
the Mathematics Education Study Program FKIP
Riau Islamic University, who too calculus 2 courses.
The selection of sample members by purposive
sampling technique was in the calculus class 2B.
There are 2 research instruments, which are:
Questionnaire Interest on the use of mobile learning
applications, interview sheets and questionnaire to
show cognitive style (Doc, 2017) and validity of
test (Mohammad, 2015). The mathematics learning
interest questionnaire sheet in this study aims to
see the perspective of student interest after applying
mobile technology-assisted mathematics learning or
mobile learning. The questionnaire indicators in this
study were developed by Djamarah in (Hendriana,
2017). Indicators of learning interest were linked
to the use of mobile learning applications. The
following are the number of statements before and
after validation.
Table 1: Results of before and after validation.
No Indicator
Statement Number
Before After
Validation Validation
1 Like or enjoy 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 1, 3, 5, 6
2
Statement of 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12
like something 12, 13, 14
more
3
There is 15, 16, 17, 18, 15, 16, 17, 18,
interest 19, 20, 21, 22, 19, 20, 21, 22,
23, 24, 25, 26, 23, 24, 25, 26,
27, 28 28
4
There is 29, 30, 31, 32 29, 30, 31, 32
awareness to
learn on their
own without
being told
5
Participate in 33, 34, 35, 36, 34, 35, 38
learning 37, 38
activities
6
Willing to pay 39, 40, 41, 42, 39, 41, 42, 43,
attention 43, 44 44
In addition to use interest questionnaire validation
with Anates v 4.0, this interest questionnaire was
also done to the validator. The results obtained from
the validator are in the form of language changes or
editorial and adjustments to the statements with the
given indicators. For the interview sheet (Sujarweni,
), it is used to explore data verbally. Esterberg
in (Sugiyono, 2013) suggested that interviews are
exchanging information and ideas so that meaning
can be constructed in a particular topic. In this study,
researchers conducted an unstructured interview to
5 research subjects outside learning to explore the
interests of learning mathematics after using the
mobile learning application (Sugiyono, 2013).
The technique to fill the interest questionnaires
in this study is each respondent filled out a
questionnaire with a check mark (v). The
format of the questionnaire response interest in
learning mathematics after applying a mobile learning
application uses a Likert scale (Brown, 2010).
According to Likert in filling out the questionnaire,
the choices are based on four answers which are:
Strongly Agree (SS), Agree (S), Disagree (TS), and
Mobile Technology in Mathematics: Students’ Perspective towards Their Cognitive Styles and Academic Ability
147

Strongly Disagree (STS). In collecting interview data,
the researcher made a list of questions related to
the research problem that had been proposed. Data
analysis which was conducted in this study was: 1)
Questionnaire Data Analysis Interests; 2) Analysis
of Interview Results; 3) Questionnaire Analysis of
Interest in Cognitive Learning Styles and academic
abilities.
The results of the interest questionnaire
distributed were obtained criteria (Azwar, 2007)
as follows:
Table 2: Criteria for Questionnaire Interest.
No Score Category
1. ¯x ≤ 113 Low
2. 113 < ¯x ≤ 156 Medium
3. ¯x ≥ 113 High
3 RESEARCH RESULT
This study discusses the results of the use of mobile
learning applications in terms of student interest in
the use of the application and sees students who
are interested in using mobile learning applications
in terms of cognitive learning styles. Based on the
results of the research, the findings of the research
results will be described as follows:
3.1 Mobile Learning Interest
Questionnaire Analysis
In this study, the interest questionnaire on mobile
learning applications was validated in 59 students.
After testing the validation of the questionnaire
instrument, there were 34 valid statements from 44
statements. The following are the results of research
on the profile of student interest after using the
mobile learning application in calculus learning II.
The following table 3 is regarding the indicators of
interest questionnaire used in this study.
Based on the table 3, it can be seen that student
interest in this mobile learning application is still in
the moderate category. However, it is interesting to
the indicator that there is a sense of attraction and the
awareness to learn on their own, including the lowest
percentage among other indicators. It shows that the
interest for independent learning is still low, but in
students there is an interest in using mobile learning
applications, hoping that this application in the future
can also improve the ability to learn independently.
Table 3: Summary of interest questionnaire score average
results for mi
No Indicator
Average
Criteria
Percen- of
tage Question-
(%) naire
Score
1 Like or enjoy 72,01 132,50 Medium
2
Statement of 71,09 130,80 Medium
of like
something
more
3
There is 75,92 139,69 Medium
interest
4
There is 69,43 127,75 Medium
awareness
to learn on
their own
without
being told
5
Participate 71,38 131,33 Medium
in
learning
activities
6
Willing to 75,54 139,00 Medium
pay
attention
Total 72,56 133,54 Medium
3.2 Analysis of Interview Results
Before conducting the interview, the researcher asked
whether the mobile learning application can be
downloaded on the Smartphone they have. It turns
out that there were those who could not download
the application, after being investigated, it showed
that this mobile learning application could only be
opened on an android application, meanwhile in IOS,
mobile learning application cannot be downloaded
and opened. However, on some Android phones, it
can be opened but there are some programs that are
unreadable.
Based on the results of the interview, the display
presented was good, but there were also students who
said that the appearance was still monotonous. In
the aspects of the material presented, some of them
were easy to understand the material provided, and
there were also students delivering material on the
mobile learning application to be more detailed. For
the training and evaluation aspects presented in the
mobile learning application, generally, they asked for
more and more variety. In addition, in terms of
answers, they also hoped for a complete solution.
Students were also interested if this application is
used in other subjects. They also hoped that there is
a video in the mobile learning application. Students
also said they were happy with this application
because if they forget to bring books, the materials
are already on their laptops. In addition, they can
learn independently whenever and wherever, there are
lecturers or not.
Based on the results of interviews with students
about the interest in learning about the mobile
ICoSEEH 2019 - The Second International Conference on Social, Economy, Education, and Humanity
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learning application that was made, it can be
concluded that basically they like the mobile learning
application that can be used in mathematics learning.
However, there are many findings from the interviews
so that the mobile learning application needs further
improvement and development.
3.3 Analysis of Interest Questionnaire
Reviewed Cognitive Style
In this section, researchers want to see whether there
are differences in learning interest in mathematics
by using mobile learning applications in terms
of cognitive styles (Kozhevnikov, 2007), which is
Field Dependent and Field Independent (Blanton,
2004). However, the researchers had a little
difficulty analyzing this because when filling in the
questionnaire of interest, most students did not want
to fill their names. Thus, the data that can be analyzed
is only student data that is known by name. Out of
46 students, only 20 wrote the name on the interest
questionnaire sheet. Meanwhile, from the average
mathematics learning interest questionnaire scores to
the use of mobile learning applications it can be
concluded that the Independent and Field Dependent
Field cognitive styles have almost the same interest
views, this is indicated because in general the average
questionnaire scores are in the ”medium” category.
Thus, the researchers concluded that if the mobile
learning application was developed again, it could
facilitate different student learning abilities
3.4 Analysis of Interest Questionnaire
Reviewed Cognitive Style
This analysis is based on student interest
questionnaires and academic abilities. Academic
ability here is taken from student learning outcomes
consisting of high, medium and low abilities.
Likewise, on the value of the interest questionnaire
that has been filled by students, the average score of
the questionnaire scores is grouped into three parts,
which are: high, medium and low. The mathematics
learning interest questionnaire analysis in terms of
student academic ability can be summarized in the
following table 4:
Table 4: Summary of interest questionnaire score average
results for mi
Average of Academic Competence
TotalQuestionnaire
High Medium Low
Score
High - 2 - 2
Medium 3 28 12 43
Low - - 1 1
Total 3 30 13 46
Based on the table above, it can be seen that in
general, students for high, medium and low ability
provide interest in learning mathematics by using
mobile learning applications in the medium category.
It means that students have a positive response to
the application made. From the data above, there
were also two students who were capable of giving
interest in the high category in the use of mobile
learning applications. It means that the mobile
learning application can help them to learn. However,
there is one person who showed low interest in
using this application, it can be used as input for
researchers so that the mobile learning application in
the development process can facilitate high, medium
and low academic abilities. Thus, the hope is that
there is no longer a gap in the academic ability of
students or it can be said that the ability of students
can increase.
4 DISCUSSION
Based on the results of the research that has
been conducted, the profile of interest in learning
mathematics towards the use of mobile learning
applications includes interest. This is based on the
results of the interest questionnaire and the results
of the interviews conducted. From the interest
questionnaire distributed to 46 students, their interest
in this application is in the medium category. In
addition, from the results of interviews, their interest
was shown in the presence of similar applications in
other subjects other than II calculus courses that the
researchers designed.
The design of this mobile learning application
consists of front view, material, practice questions
and evaluation. Then, this application can be
downloaded on the Playstore, in the application
entitled ”Cara Mudah Belajar Kalkulus (How to
easily learn calculus)”. Here is a picture of the mobile
learning application (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Mobile leaning application on Google Play.
Before students filling out a questionnaire on
learning interest in mathematics by using a mobile
learning application, they downloaded on the Google
Playstore on their respective Smartphone, then,
they were involved in classroom learning. When
downloading this application, based on interviews
Mobile Technology in Mathematics: Students’ Perspective towards Their Cognitive Styles and Academic Ability
149

and observations while carrying out research, there
were 6 students who could not download this
application. It was because their Smartphones were
not Android but IOS. Meanwhile, most of them were
able to open this application. There were some
students who could not open the application, when
opening it, there was only a blank screen. Thus, in
the future, this application still needs improvement.
Furthermore, here is the display inside the application
(Figure 3).
Figure 3: Some parts of a mobile learning application.
In the evaluation section, the evaluation question
only contains five questions. Each student’s question
was asked to analyze the wrong answer. When
they worked on the problem, most of the students
had difficulty finding the answers, they conveyed the
questions presented were quite difficult, but there
were several students who wanted the evaluation
questions to be presented from easy to difficult.
After they worked on the evaluation questions, they
could see the complete answer key, so they could
evaluate themselves the answers they have found.
The following is a picture of the evaluation section
displayed on the mobile learning application (Figure
4).
In this evaluation section, students were not
able to see the answers before completing the test
questions given. The weakness of this evaluation
problem is that students could answer by guessing
from the answers given. This application is just
designing questions and is answerable for students to
analyze their answers. Their interest in the evaluation
section is quite good.
Based on the results of research, findings during
interviews and observations while conducting the
learning process in the classroom using this mobile
learning application, this application is good to
develop. Development of this application really
needs to be done in order to improve the quality
of the content or material presented so that it can
provide benefits in its use. Seeing the good interest
of students in this mobile learning application,
researchers will continue the development of mobile
learning applications so that they can be used in
Figure 4: Display of the Evaluation Section of the Mobile
Learning Application.
mathematics learning. Moreover, it is expected that
this application can be used as one of the new learning
methods that can improve student learning outcomes
(Slavin, 2006) because it makes students easier to
study anywhere and anytime without carrying a book
(Skillen, 2015).
5 CONCLUSION
Based on the results of the research and discussion,
it was concluded that the perspective of interest
in learning mathematics by using mobile learning
applications was included in the ”medium” category.
Overall, the use of mobile learning applications is
in demand for the learning process in the classroom
and for independent learning. This application is
an innovative application for learning mathematics in
the future and can give new contribution toward the
teaching method.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you for LPPM Universitas Islam Riau for
funding this research.
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150

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