Int. J. Mobile Learning and Organisation, Vol. 10, No.

3, 2016 171

A repertory grid-based interactive e-book approach to

supporting in-field mobile learning activities in an
ecology course

Shao-Chen Chang* and Sheng-Yuan Wang

Graduate Institute of Applied Science and Technology,
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology,
43, Sec.4, Keelung Rd., Taipei, 106, Taiwan
Email: shao.chen76@[Link]
Email: wjames0717@[Link]
*Corresponding author

Gwo-Jen Hwang
Graduate Institute of Digital Learning and Education,
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology,
43, Sec.4, Keelung Rd., Taipei, 106, Taiwan
Email: [Link]@[Link]

Abstract: Previous studies have indicated the importance of having students

learning from the real-world contexts via observing and interacting with
authentic learning target; in the meantime, educators have also pointed out the
need of providing effective supports to help students organise knowledge
acquired from both the courseware and real-world contexts. In this study, a
repertory grid-based interactive e-book approach is proposed to guide students
organising what they have observed in the field and what they have learned
from textbooks during the field trip. An experiment has been conducted in an
ecology course to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach. A total
of 52 fifth graders from two classes participated in the experiment. A class of
26 students was assigned to experimental group who learned with the proposed
approach. Another class with 26 students was the control group, who learned
with conventional mobile learning with interactive e-books. From the
experimental results, it was found that the proposed approach significantly
improved the students’ learning achievements and learning motivation, and
decreased their cognitive load in the meantime.

Keywords: mobile learning; interactive e-books; repertory grid; ecology

courses.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Chang, S-C., Wang, S-Y.
and Hwang, G-J. (2016) ‘A repertory grid-based interactive e-book approach to
supporting in-field mobile learning activities in an ecology course’, Int. J.
Mobile Learning and Organisation, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp.171–186.

Biographical notes: Shao-Chen Chang is currently a PhD student at

the Graduate Institute of Applied Science and Technology of National Taiwan
University of Science and Technology. His research interests include
mobile and ubiquitous learning, digital game-based learning and knowledge
engineering and expert systems.

Copyright © 2016 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

172 S-C. Chang, S-Y. Wang and G-J. Hwang

Sheng-Yuan Wang is currently a PhD student at the Graduate Institute of

Applied Science and Technology of National Taiwan University of Science
and Technology. His research interests include mobile and ubiquitous learning,
digital game-based learning and knowledge engineering and expert systems.

Gwo-Jen Hwang is a Chair Professor at the Graduate Institute of Digital

Learning and Education of National Taiwan University of Science and
Technology. His research interests include mobile and ubiquitous learning,
digital game-based learning, adaptive learning, and artificial intelligence in
education.

This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled ‘Effects of

repertory grid-based interactive e-books on students learning performance in a
Fish Ecology course’ presented at the ‘Taiwan E-Learning Forum (TWELF
2013)’, Taichung, Taiwan, November2013.

1 Background and objectives

Due to the social awareness of the issues of the environmental conservation in recent
years, people become to take care of marine pollution and overfishing for fishes (Kime,
1995; Rogers and Laffoley, 2011). Therefore, it became an important educational goal to
help students understand the importance of ecological conservation. Fish ecology is such
an issue that has attracted attention from researchers and educators, who have pointed out
the importance of teaching students the knowledge of cherish resources (Førsund and
Strøm, 2013). In the course of fish ecology in Taiwan, students need to identify the
appearances and habits of fishes as well as their living environments. It is expected that,
via learning the relevant materials, students can have the concept of ecology protection.
However, most ecological conservation courses are taught in the class using textbooks
and videos or photos. Students seldom have chance to make real-world observations with
guidance and instructions.
Recent developments in wireless communications and mobile technologies have
enabled students to learn out of the classroom. Mobile learning refers to use the mobile
devices or learning devices with communication transmission technology (Cheon et al.,
2012; Şad and Göktaş, 2014; Hwang and Wu, 2014). There has been much research
successful importing mobile devices in the learning activities and enabling students to get
better learning performances than traditional instructions (Lai and Hwang, 2015). For
example, Chen et al. (2008) proposed a learning activity to combine mobile techniques
with sensing techniques for helping students learn the authentic environment.
Moreover, several researchers have indicated that students might feel too difficult to
face the complex learning materials from both the real-world and digital-world
environments. To guide or assist student to learn in such an authentic learning
environment using mobile and wireless communication technologies, students need
proper learning strategies or tools (Jeng et al., 2010; Chu et al., 2010a; Şad and Göktaş,
2014). Therefore, this study develops an interactive learning material e-book with the
repertory gird approach to guide students observing fishes in the ecology classroom and
comparing the different characteristics of fishes on the mobile device. In addition, an
experiment is conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach by
answering the following research questions:
 A repertory grid-based interactive e-book approach 173

1 Is there a significant difference between the learning outcomes of the students using
the interactive e-book approach and those using the conventional interactive e-book
in the field?
2 Is there a significant difference between the learning motivations of the students
using the interactive e-book approach and those using the conventional interactive
e-book in the field?
3 Is there a significant difference between the cognitive loads of the students using the
interactive e-book approach and those using the conventional interactive e-book in
the field?

2 Literature review

2.1 Mobile learning

Mobile and commutation technologies enable people to access information in anywhere
and at any time; in the meantime, these technologies also provide new opportunities for
school teachers to design learning activities that situate students to learn in various real-
world contexts with access to digital learning materials via the Internet (Hwang et al.,
2008; Bressler and Bodzin, 2013; Martin and Ertzberger, 2013). Researchers call such a
mobile technology-enhanced learning approach “mobile learning” (El-Hussein and
Cronje, 2010; Park, 2011; Martin and Ertzberger, 2013; Al-Emran et al., 2016). Owing to
the portability of mobile devices, some researchers have used other terms to describe the
use of mobile and wireless communication technologies in education, such as “seamless
learning” that emphasises “learning across contexts” (Looi et al., 2016) and “ubiquitous
learning” that emphasises “learning anywhere and anytime” (Hwang et al., 2008; Munoz-
Cristobal et al., 2015).
In the past decade, various mobile learning activities have been conducted in
classrooms, fields (e.g., ecology parks, museums, zoos, and school campus), or both
(Bressler and Bodzin, 2013; Sandberg et al., 2014; Huang and Chiu, 2015). For example,
Stoddard et al. (2015) reported three case studies of learning local immigration history in
museums using mobile technology, including the inquiry activities in the Tenement
Museum in New York City, the Open House exhibit at the Minnesota History Center in
St Paul, Minnesota, and the Greenbush neighbourhood in Madison, Wisconsin. Several
researchers have further pointed out the benefits of mobile learning, such as mobility,
convenience and personal (Chu et al., 2008; Lin and Lin, 2016).
In the meantime, researchers have reported the challenges of learning in the field
using mobile devices (Chu, 2014). For example, Land and Zimmerman (2015), a learning
environment was designed to facilitate outdoor science learning at an arboretum and
nature centre using tablet computers. They found that, without additional supports, the
students had difficulties in making connections between the concepts presented on the
mobile software and the contexts in the field. Therefore, many researchers have tried to
study the issues of mobile learning by leading in effective learning strategies or
supporting tools (Chu et al., 2010b; Martin and Ertzberger, 2013; Sandberg et al., 2014).
For example, Chu et al. (2010b) proposed a mobile learning system with a two-tier test
174 S-C. Chang, S-Y. Wang and G-J. Hwang

mechanism to guide students to observe and think in depth in the real-world contexts and
found the proposed approach was effective in improving the students’ learning
performances. Recently, Chu (2014) proposed a formative assessment-based learning
strategy to help the fifth-grade students learning for indigenous culture course; however,
negative impacts were found on the students’ learning outcomes and motivation. From
these studies, it can be seen that properly integrating supporting strategies or tools into
mobile learning activities remains a challenging issue.

2.2 Interactive electronic book

Electronic books (e-books) have been defined and described by several previous studies
(Donald, 2000; Silipigni Connaway, 2001; Armstrong et al., 2002). For example, one
definition proposed by Armstrong et al. (2002) is “any piece of electronic text regardless
of size or composition (a digital object), but excluding journal publications, made
available electronically (or optically) for any device (handheld or desk-bound) that
includes a screen.” Most research on e-books displays the digital learning material via
electronic screens.
Due to the popularity of mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablet computers,
more and more studies have tried to develop new e-book functions to assist students to
learn in a more effective manner, such as annotation, navigation and various interactive
functions. Researchers have therefore call such e-book systems with interactive functions
“Interactive e-books” (Huang et al., 2012; Huang and Liang, 2015), which have been
widely used in formal or informal education in the past decade. For example, Korat
(2010) developed an interactive electronic book to assist students learning English
vocabulary, story comprehension and word reading; Hsieh et al. (2015) also reported the
positive effects of using interactive e-book on students’ English learning performance.
Meanwhile, researchers have reported the need of providing learning guidance or
supports in e-books. For example, Rockinson-Szapkiw et al. (2013) compared the
effectiveness of using e-books with traditional textbooks in a university course and found
no difference in cognitive process and learning achievements between two groups.
Therefore, to fully utilise the interactive functions to facilitate learning, it is important to
lead in effective learning tools or strategies when developing interactive e-books.

2.3 Repertory grid-based Mindtools

Mindtools has been defined by Jonassen (1999) as “a way of using a computer
application program to engage learners in constructive, higher-order, critical thinking
about the subjects they are studying”. The repertory grid is one of the Mindtools, which
originated from Kelly’s Personal construct theory (Kelly, 1955) for helping people
interpret and organise their knowledge. The repertory grids method can be used to
identify similarities and differences among a set of elements, which could be decisions to
be made, objects to be classified, or concepts to be learned (Liu and Lee, 2005; Hwang
et al., 2015; Rozenszajn and Yarden, 2015).
Table 1 shows an illustrative example of a repertory grid related to several species
of fishes and their living environments. In this example, the names of the fishes
(the learning targets) are the elements. In addition, the features and living environments
 A repertory grid-based interactive e-book approach 175

of the fishes are called “constructs,” each of which consists of a feature (e.g., large size)
and the opposite of the feature (e.g., small size). The ratings (usually ranging from 1 to 5)
represent the relationships between the elements and the constructs
Table 1 Illustrative example of a repertory grid for fishes and their living environments

Targets Amphilophus Pangasius

Pterophyllum Clownfish
Features citrinellus sanitwongsei
Big size 3 3 1 1 Small size
Monotonous
Bright colours 1 1 3 5
colour
Live in deep
Live in shallow water 2 1 2 2
water
Like water
Like water with lower
3 5 3 1 with higher
PH value
PH value
Like higher
Like lower water
2 1 3 4 water
temperature
temperature

In past years, the repertory grid approach has been widely used in many technology
enhanced learning studies, which have reported its potential in helping students organise
what they have learned from the textbooks, field trips as well as their daily life
experience (O’Connor and Andrews, 2015; Rozenszajn and Yarden, 2015; Yorke and
Dallos, 2015). For example, Hwang et al. (2011) presented a grid-based knowledge
acquisition approach to help fifth-grade students observe the learning targets, organise
and share their knowledge in the field. The experimental results show that this approach
improves students’ learning achievements and their ability of identifying species. Shih
et al. (2011) integrated the repertory grid method into a mobile learning system to help
elementary students observe plants on school campus. The experimental results showed
that the approach significantly enhanced students’ motivation and learning effectiveness.
Therefore, it this study, an interactive e-book-based mobile learning system is
developed based on the repertory grid method. It is expected that, with the guidance of
the repertory grid, students can systematically and effectively organise the knowledge
learned from both the e-book and the real-world observations.

3 An interactive e-book system based on the repertory grid method

In this study, an interactive e-book system is developed based on the repertory grid
approach for guiding students to observe fish ecology and organise the acquired
information in an aquarium. The structure of the system is shown in Figure 1, which
consists of four function units, that is, the learning material-browsing unit, repertory grid-
based guiding unit, assessment unit and interactive function unit. With those functions,
students can determine their own learning progress and organise what they have learned
from the e-book as well as what they have observed in the field trip.
176 S-C. Chang, S-Y. Wang and G-J. Hwang

Figure 1 Structure of the interactive e-book with the repertory grid function

Figure 2 shows the scenario of the in-field mobile learning supported by the interactive
e-book. When students are observing a specific learning target (i.e., a species of fishes),
the relevant supplementary materials are presented on the e-book.

Figure 2 Structure of the interactive e-book with the repertory grid function

During the in-field learning process, a three step repertory grid-based guiding function is
provided to help students organise what they have learned from the e-books and the in-
field observations. The guiding function is presented in the form of quizzes. For example,
 A repertory grid-based interactive e-book approach 177

Figure 3 shows the first step of the guiding function, which asks students to select and
“move” the candidate features of the specified fish they are observing to the circle in the
lower part of the screen.

Figure 3 Interface of the first step of the repertory grid guiding function

If the students give a wrong answer (i.e., choose an incorrect feature), the learning
system give feedback (see Figure 4) and provide relevant supplementary materials
(see Figure 5) to them. The students are then asked to answer the question again. If the
students fail to correctly answer the same question for three times, the learning system
then shows the correct answer to them.

Figure 4 Interface of the feedback for an incorrect answer

178 S-C. Chang, S-Y. Wang and G-J. Hwang

Figure 5 Interface of supplementary materials

In the second step, the learning system summarises the students’ choices for the features
of individual fishes and ask them to determine the precise value (i.e., 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5) of
each feature for the fish they are observing (see the snapshot in Figure 6). In the third
step, a fill-in-blank test is conducted by asking the students to complete the repertory grid
to ensure that they know all of the <fish, feature> relationships (see the snapshot in
Figure 7).

Figure 6 The second step of the repertory grid-guiding procedure

 A repertory grid-based interactive e-book approach 179

Figure 7 The third step of the repertory grid-guiding procedure

4 Method

4.1 Participants
The participants were 52 fifth graders from two classes of an elementary school in
Taiwan. A class of 26 students (14 males and 12 females) was assigned to the
experimental group who learned with the repertory grid-based interactive e-book system.
Another class with 26 students (16 males and 10 females) was the control group, who
learned with the conventional interactive e-book. During the in-field learning activity,
each student had a tablet computer to access to learning materials and learning tasks
presented on the interactive the e-book.

4.2 Experimental procedure

Figure 8 shows the procedure of the experiment. Before the learning activity, the two
groups of students took a 60 minute natural course learning instruction. Following that,
they took the pre-test and questionnaires for 40 minute. During the learning activity, the
experimental group students learned with the repertory grid-based interactive e-book,
while the control group students learned with the conventional interactive e-book. The
students in both groups were equipped with a tablet computer in the aquarium. The time
for the learning activity was 80 minutes. After the learning activity, the students took the
post-test and the questionnaires of learning motivation and cognitive load.
180 S-C. Chang, S-Y. Wang and G-J. Hwang

Figure 8 The procedure of the learning activity

4.3 Instruments
The pre-test and post-test were developed by three experienced teachers who taught the
ecology course in the selected school for more than 10 years. The pre-test was developed
to test the students’ prior knowledge of learning the ecology course. It consisted of
multiple-choice items, with a perfect score of 100. The post-test consisted of 14 multiple-
choice items, one fill-in-the-blank items, three short answer question items for assessing
the student’s knowledge of the fishes and their living environments. Its perfect score was
100. The KR20 values of the pre-test and post-test were 0.53 and 0.69, respectively.
The questionnaire of learning motivation was adopted from the measure developed
by Printrich and DeGroot (1990). It consists of seven items, such as “I want to get better
score than other classmate in this learning subject.” and “I want to learn more about the
content in the course.” The Cronbach’s alpha value of the questionnaire was 0.86.
The questionnaire of cognitive load was modified from the measure developed by
Sweller et al. (1998). It consisted of eight items, such as “I cannot concentrate on
learning by this explanation in the learning process.” and “I think I need to spend a lot of
effort to learn the contents of the learning activities.” The Cronbach’s alpha value of the
measure was 0.89.
 A repertory grid-based interactive e-book approach 181

5 Results

5.1 Learning achievements

First, an independent t-test was used to analyse the pre-test of the learning achievements.
From the t-test result, the mean and standard deviation of the pre-test scores were 68.46
and 12.39 for the experiment group, and 68.41 and 14.42 for control group. The t-test
result (t = –0.05, p >.05) shows that there was no significant difference between the two
groups; consequently, it is evident that the two groups of students had equivalent prior
knowledge before the learning activity.
The test scores were analysed with ANCOVA to compare the learning achievements
of the two experiment group and control group by excluding the difference between their
prior knowledge; that is, the students’ pre-test scores was used as the covariate and their
post-test scores as dependent variables. Table 2 shows the ANCOVA result. It was found
that the adjusted means of the post-test scores were 57.58 for the experimental group, and
46.88 for the control group. According to the results (F = 14.398, p < 0.001), there was a
significant difference between the two groups, implying that the system had significantly
positive effects on the learning achievements of the experimental group students in
learning the knowledge of the fishes and their living environments.
Table 2 Descriptive data and ANCOVA of the post-test results

N Mean S.D. Adjusted Mean Std. Error F

Experimental group 26 57.58 3.12 58.36 2.57 14.398
Control group 26 46.88 3.33 47.08 1.50
Note: ***p < 0.001.

5.2 Learning motivation

In terms of learning motivation, the means and standard deviations of the pre-
questionnaire ratings were 5.32 and 1.02 for the experimental group, and 5.24 and 1.29
for the control group. The t-test result showed no significant difference between the
pre-questionnaire ratings of the two groups (t = 0.262, p >.05).
After the learning activity, the two groups of students took the learning motivation
post-questionnaire. Table 3 shows the ANCOVA result. It was found that the adjusted
means of the post-test scores were 5.273 for the experimental group, and 5.173 for the
control group; moreover, no significant difference was found between the two groups
with F = 0.015 and p > 0.05, implying that the system had no significantly positive
effects on the learning motivation of the experimental group students for the fish ecology
course.
Table 3 Descriptive data and ANCOVA of the learning motivation results

N Mean S.D. Adjusted Mean Std. Error. F

Experimental group 26 5.273 1.34 5.25 0.212 0.015
Control group 26 5.173 1.43 5.21 0.212
182 S-C. Chang, S-Y. Wang and G-J. Hwang

5.3 Cognitive load

Table 4 shows the t-test result of the cognitive load ratings of the two groups. The mean
values and standard deviations were 3.45 and 1.64 for the control group, and 2.54 and
1.55 for the experimental group. The t-test result (t = –2.055, p < 0.05) shows that there
was significant difference between the two groups, as shown in Table 4, implying that
the students who learned with the conventional e-book learning approach revealed
significantly higher cognitive load than those who learned with the interactive repertory
grid e-book learning approach. This finding complies with the experimental results of
cognitive load, imply that the control group have higher cognitive load than the
experimental group.
Table 4 Descriptive data and t-test of the learning cognitive load results

N Mean S.D. t
Experimental group 26 2.54 1.55 –2.055*
Control group 26 3.45 1.64
Note: *p < 0.05.

6 Discussion and conclusions

In this paper, a repertory grid-based interactive e-book learning approach is proposed for
supporting mobile learning activities in a fish ecology course. The experimental results
show that the proposed approach significantly improved the students’ learning
achievement. The statistical results further showed that most of the students enjoyed the
learning activity. In addition, no significantly difference was found between the learning
motivations of the students learning with or without the repertory grid method. It is
inferred that two groups were involved to use the interactive e-books with the same
content and interactive functions during the mobile learning process, and hence they were
equivalently motivated.
In term of the students’ cognitive, it was found that the repertory grid-based
interactive e-book could significantly reduce the students’ cognitive load. The cognitive
load theory was proposed by Sweller (1988). Cognitive load refers to the way in which
peoples’ cognitive construction of dealing with learning contents during the learning
process or performing a particular task. In past decades, the cognitive load theory has
been adopted and discussed in many educational technology studies, such as web-based
learning, mobile learning, and digital game-based learning (Hwang et al. 2013; Wu et al.,
2011; Chu, 2014). Chu (2014) indicated that students’ cognitive loads were not only
determined by the amount and difficulty level of learning materials, but also were related
to how the materials are managed and organised. From the experimental results, it was
found that, with the help of the repertory grid-based guiding mechanism, the students’
cognitive load was significantly lower, implying that the approach did help the students
organise what they were learning in a better way during the learning process. This could
be the reason why the experimental group students showed better learning achievements
than those in the control group.
 A repertory grid-based interactive e-book approach 183

While most e-book leaning studies have focused on assessing the effect and function
of e-book in traditional e-book learning activity (Rockinson-Szapkiw et al., 2013; Shamir
and Shlafer, 2011), one of the major contributions of this study is the proposal of the
repertory grid-based guiding mechanism in developing interactive e-books for supporting
students to learn with mobile devices in authentic learning environments. Most of the
previous studies paid attention to students’ learning motivation, or learning achievement
of using e-books to learn in the classroom (Rockinson-Szapkiw et al., 2013; Korat,
2010), while this study applied the repertory grid mechanism to the development of
interactive books for mobile learning.
Despite that the experimental results are satisfied, there are some limitations of the
present study. First, the time period of the learning activity was short and the number of
participants was not large, it could be difficult to infer the effects of the proposed
approach on large scale and long-term applications based on the findings of this study.
Moreover, as the learning materials in the currently interact e-book is designed for the
fish ecology course, to apply the proposed approach to other courses, minor to medium
modifications on the learning system, including the e-book interface and the learning
material database, are required.
In the future, it is worth conducting large-scale and long-term studies to investigate
the effects of this approach in depth. It is also worth trying to apply the approach to other
form of learning activities, such as collaborative learning activities or seamless flipped
learning activities (Hwang et al., 2015) for the field trips of other ecology courses (e.g.,
plant ecology, bird ecology and butterfly ecology).

Acknowledgements

This study is supported in part by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the
Republic of China under contract numbers NSC 102-2511-S-011-007-MY3 and MOST
104-2511-S-011-001-MY2.

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