“Dropout from device usage is a serious problem for the industry,” said Angela McIntyre, research director at Gartner. “The abandonment rate is quite high relative to the usage rate. To offer a compelling enough value proposition, the uses for wearable devices need to be distinct from what smartphones typically provide. Wearables makers need to engage users with incentives and gamification.”
According to the survey, the U.S. leads smartwatch use at 12 percent, while the U.K. is at 9 percent and Australia at 7 percent.
As wearable devices have become more popular, higher education institutions are investigating their relevance to student learning and whether data from the wearables could impact instructional practices.
A Penn State faculty member is studying how wearable devices and accessible technologies such as the Apple Watch can support students’ self-regulated learning to lead to greater academic success.
The pilot includes design experiments and large scale studies to examine the impact and effectiveness of delivering self-regulated learning supports through wearable devices.
Comparing the results of the pilot to delivering similar supports via existing mechanisms such as course management sites will help faculty gain a better understanding of technologies that support student academic success. This information will provide a foundation for future efforts that leverage wearable technologies to improve instruction and learning.
Some higher-ed experts contend wearable devices can: influence student behavior based on the knowledge students gain from access to their own data; make real-time data use and feedback more realistic; allow access to important behavioral data; and enable predictive analytics through the use of clean, accessible data.
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