Mobile instant messaging
technologies have become popular among the youth, they predominantly
use it to socialise, communicate and share information anywhere and anytime and
it provides the platform which learners can use for learning from specialists
across the world. This study was conducted in semi-rural schools in the Vhembe District in Limpopo Province of South Africa. Diffusion of innovation theory was
used to determine factors that could promote the adoption of mobile instant
messaging for learning mathematics in semi-rural public schools. IBM SPSS
Statistics 20 for analysis was used to analyze data. However, learners in most
semi-rural public schools in South Africa appear not to be aware of mobile instant messaging
for learning and are not adopting and using it despite its availability and
convenience. It was also found that most learners and educators
never used mobile instant messaging for learning, because they had never heard
of it. Lack of awareness of mobile instant messaging was found as one of the
factors hindering learners to adopt mobile instant messaging for learning in
South African semi-rural public schools.
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