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Wearables can help me learn: A survey of user perception of wearable technologies for learning in everyday life

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Abstract

Wearable devices are a popular class of portable ubiquitous technology. These devices are available in a variety of forms, ranging from smart glasses to smart rings. The fact that smart wearable devices are attached to the body makes them particularly suitable to be integrated into people’s daily lives. Thus, we propose that wearables can be particularly useful to help people make sense of different kinds of information and situations in the course of their everyday activities, in other words, to help support learning in everyday life. Further, different forms of wearables have different affordances leading to varying perceptions and preferences, depending on the purpose and context of use. While there is research on wearable use in the learning context, it is mostly limited to specific settings and usually only explores wearable use for a specific task. This paper presents an online survey with 70 participants conducted to understand users’ preferences and perceptions of how wearables may be used to support learning in their everyday life. Multiple ways of use of wearable for learning were proposed. Asking for information was the most common learning-oriented use. The smartwatch/wristband, followed by the smart glasses, was the most preferred wearable form factor to support learning. Our survey results also showed that the choice of wearable type to use for learning is associated with prior wearable experience and that perceived social influence of wearables decreases significantly with gain in the experience with a fitness tracker. Overall, our study indicates that wearable devices have untapped potential to be used for learning in daily life and different form factors are perceived to afford different functions and used for different purposes.

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Data is available to the authors and if needed can be requested from the corresponding author.

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There was no specific application developed for the study.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the contribution of [blinded] in designing and conducting the survey. We thank all the participants who took part in our survey. This work was supported by [blinded for review], grant (#Blinded)

Funding

This project was supported by NSF (National Science Foundation) grant #1566469, Lived Science Narratives: Meaningful Elementary Science through Wearable Technologies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Neha Rani & Sharon Lynn Chu

Authors
  1. Neha Rani
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  2. Sharon Lynn Chu
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Contributions

Neha Rani contributed to literature review, study design, data analysis, paper writing.

Sharon Lynn Chu contributed to project conceptualization, study design, paper writing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Neha Rani.

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Ethics approval

Study was approved university’s ethics board, the institutional review board. IRB#: IRB201900971, Title:Understanding the Potential of Wearable Technologies to Support Learning was approved as exempt by Behavioral/NonMedical Institutional Review Board, FWA00005790.

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IRB approved informed consent form was provided to the participants, and consent was obtained prior to the study. Participants were informed that their participation is voluntary, and they can decline to participate, or withdraw consent at any time free with no consequences.

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All the authors were consented for publication and are fully aware of the content of the paper. I and my co-author have provided correct information to our best knowledge and provide consent for this publication.

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On behalf of both the authors corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

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Rani, N., Chu, S.L. Wearables can help me learn: A survey of user perception of wearable technologies for learning in everyday life. Educ Inf Technol 27, 3381–3401 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-021-10726-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-021-10726-6

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