Digital Education: Assessment of e-Learning and m-Learning Adoption in Tertiary Institutions in South Africa

Over the years, academic learning has taken a new dimension from the popular old traditional approach to modern technologically innovative techniques induced by Information and Communication Technology (ICT). This development has undoubtedly improved the entire learning framework and consequently circumvented previously noticed challenges regarding the traditional learning approach. At the moment, students of higher institutions of learning have adopted both e-learning and m-learning for studying, researching and learning processes. In order to ascertain the level of impact of these two learning mechanisms in our universities, this paper therefore presents a comparative assessment of the adoption of e-learning and m-learning techniques in South African Institutions. The assessment was based on criteria such as: features considered for choosing either of the techniques, learning impacts of using m-learning and e-learning, experiences incurred with m-leaning and e-learning as well as factors affecting the adoption rate of both techniques. This research attempts to proffer suggestions to learners, lecturers and government on how to achieve better optimization with e-learning and m-learning in their learning process in South African Universities. In carrying out this research, we distributed questionnaires among students of the North-West University, South Africa in all the three (3) campuses and Vaal University of Technology (VUT), South Africa. The study reveals that the learning process is tending towards m-learning though with challenges. The authors therefore concluded by advising the parties involved for the effective implementation of the future technique.