The Study of Students Perceptions of On-campus ... - Research Bank

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1. Introduction Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) have rapidly become popular, particularly in educational institutions. There are many wireless technologies on the market today such as IEEE 802.11 series. Many laptops are wireless capable either in IEEE 802.11a, b or g standard. Moreover, the new standard of 802.11n has many drafts on the market recently. Wireless technology has been replacing the wired networks and gradually taking over the network market. With Wireless networking, the cables are eliminated, the networks are more compatible, and the connections become easier. With so many benefits of the wireless network, many tertiary institutes have provided WLANs at campuses for students and faculties. The advantages of wireless networking are more obvious in tertiary institutes because of the dynamic environment. Rudsar, Joyce & Kolahi (2006) believe that the flexibility of wireless networking allows students greater access without the expense of cabling new buildings or areas like computer laboratories. The researcher of this study is a student and also a user of WLANs at UNITEC New Zealand. This research is based on the understanding of academic literatures related to the status of the adoption of WLANs in the education sector and developed to identify the issues arising from the use of WLANs from the perspective of users, and particularly from the perspective of students. The result would be used for developing, managing and improving the wireless services in educational settings. This research focuses on the main research question of “How has the availability of Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) on campus affected 1
students?” The following are seven sub-research questions developed to help understanding of the main research question. � What kind of students are the users of on-campus WLANs? � What do students use on-campus WLANs for? � What are the behaviours of students who use on-campus WLANs? � What are the current challenges that students perceive with WLANs? � Are there any impacts on students from the use of on-campus WLANs? � What opportunities are available for educational institutions to provide the convenience of WLANs for students? � Are there any technical issues concerning WLANs relevant to educational institutions that arise from user requirements? The research questions above are aimed to obtain answers from students from their own point of view. There is no standard answer for any of the above questions. The questions mostly require qualitative answers, for example the impacts on students from the use of on-campus WLANS. This question is also an interview question in this research. The interviewees were free to respond with their personal experience. Therefore the methodology of this research is qualitative methodology. The data were gathered for this research through literature review, observations, surveys and interviews. The review of academic literature is presented in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 presents and discusses the details of the research methodology. In Chapter 4 and 5, the gathered data is coded and analysed. Finally, Chapter 6 sets out the conclusions. 2
Page 1 and 2: The Study of Students Perceptions o
Page 3 and 4: Acknowledgement I would like to tha
Page 5 and 6: 4.2.1. Observations................
Page 7: List of Tables Table 3- 1: Summary
Page 11 and 12: ways to minimize maintenance and in
Page 13 and 14: campus” discussed the adoption of
Page 15 and 16: view, professors could use these fe
Page 17 and 18: institute owns multi buildings. For
Page 19 and 20: truly mobile computing solution”
Page 21 and 22: This article had an excellent point
Page 23 and 24: (Henderson et al. 2004). By compari
Page 25 and 26: students, only 40 used all the band
Page 27 and 28: the faculty technology; it created
Page 29 and 30: University - adopted 802.11n device
Page 31 and 32: academic that consider it from the
Page 33 and 34: 2.3 Summary This literature review
Page 35 and 36: 3. Methodology 3.1 Purpose of the R
Page 37 and 38: WLANs on students, the interview wa
Page 39 and 40: Summary of qualitative research tec
Page 41 and 42: Setting This study was conducted on
Page 43 and 44: Step 6: The results of observation
Page 45 and 46: Step 1: Identifying key words. The
Page 47 and 48: Step 3: Divide the answers into dif
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Page 51 and 52: answers. Step 3: Divide the answers
Page 53 and 54: 4.1 Quantitative data findings 4.1.
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� Places where participants got I
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student account. The other 36 parti
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4.2 Qualitative data findings 4.2.1
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The situation or answers from all p
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Frequency of use of WLANs Time of u
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getting entertainment from his home
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and downloads related to his assign
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As can be seen from Table 4-3, only
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� The convenience and inconvenien
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Participant MC Participant MC thoug
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assignments and research in the lib
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compare websites or do some tests f
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Participant A Participant A conside
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she had her classes. E said she had
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The availability of the on-campus W
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� Aspect(s) of Wireless Local Are
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and security issues of the on-campu
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suggested the library should extend
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P said sometimes he could get a sta
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section of this chapter. This is in
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What opportunities are available fo
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However, no matter whether the user
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explains why most of participants w
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5.4.2. What restrictions are there
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5.5 Impacts on students from using
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on-campus WLANs affected student de
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5.7 Technical issues concerning the
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to check whether the laptops used t
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This chapter integrates the concern
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follows: The users of on-campus WLA
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everyday requirement for students,
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g) Discussion h) E-learning i) Down
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Appendix C: Information Sheet Hello
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The participant should retain a cop
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Government Solution Blueprint, (200
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