Smartphones for online study
The attached document are the first and second chapters of my dissertation (Intro and Lit Review). It includes comments and needed changes from my dissertation advisers. Please make their recommended changes with academic professionalism. Below is a summation of their comments. Chapter 1. What we miss in this chapter is your own motivation for doing this study. We’d expect to know where you are coming from, why you care, maybe why your institution cares about the research. It would help, I think, to provide the justification for the study which is still a bit vague. You certainly establish that smartphone use has increased but we’re less convinced that you’ve established cause for concern about approaches to study or engagement. We think the problem is that you’re inclined to make the assumption that there is a causal direction of influence from smartphone use to approaches/engagement. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence to base that on. It’s easier to justify a general exploration of the possible correlations between them, either way. So the questions need to be phrased carefully to reflect this. Chapter 2. Fine on technology etc but still a little weaker on learning stuff, meaning the chapter is rather unbalanced. Pretty uncritical presentation of approaches to learning and engagement as concepts (both these sections slide quickly into more discussion of smartphones). Transactional distance theory surely needs to come after the critical discussion of these concepts, not dropped in at random as it seems to be at the moment. I also think the chapter needs to end with a return to the research questions, showing what light the literature has shed on them (otherwise why do the review?).