Technology for the 21st Century: Exploring the Use of WhatsApp Instant Messaging for Pre-Service Teachers’ Learning of Mathematics

Abstract

South African Universities are exploring pedagogic strategies that inspire and engage students with module content. One such strategy is the use of technology-based tools such as smartphones within Higher Education. The purpose of this study was to explore pre-service teachers’ use of WhatsApp instant messaging when learning mathematics. To generate data a mathematics questionnaire and semi-structured interviews with purposively selected participants were conducted. The questionnaires were analysed quantitatively and the interviews were analysed qualitatively using thematic coding. Four themes focusing on how pre-service teachers used WhatsApp Instant Messaging for learning mathematics emerged. The themes of WhatsApp Instant Messaging: encourages collaborative mathematics learning, encourages ubiquitous mathematics learning, encourages prompt mathematics learning and encourages anonymous mathematics learning emerged from this study. These themes are considered useful for discussing and creating a characteristic 21st century technology based Higher Education learning milieu.