A Study of Contextualised Mobile Information Delivery for Language Learning

Abstract

Mobile devices offer unique opportunities to deliver learning content in authentic learning situations. Apart from being able to play various kinds of rich multimedia content, they offer new ways of tailoring information to the learner’s situation or context. This paper presents the results of a study of mobile media delivery for language learning, comparing two context filters and four selection methods for language content. Thirty-five people (18 male, 17 female; M = 31.06 years, SD = 8.93) participated in this study, divided over seven treatments in total. The treatment groups were compared on knowledge gain, and the results indicated that this comparison was significant. The results found indicated an effect of both context filters as selection methods on the learner performance. In addition, the results indicated a cost/benefit trade-off that should be taken into account when developing contextualised media for learning.