Impacts of Technology in Learning: Mobile Typing Applications for Writing and Accomplishing Academic Tasks among Arabic-Speaking Undergraduate Students

In recent years, especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of mobile applications (apps) has become common in all areas of life for carrying out tasks, facilitating communication, and completing work. Education has been one of the most prominent areas that has presented a strong trend for using mobile apps. For instance, a huge number of Arabic-speaking undergraduate students in Saudi Arabia have been using mobile typing apps to accomplish their academic tasks and for other educational purposes. This phenomenon has influenced the academic writing skills of undergraduate students. In this study, we identify the relationship between academic tasks, academic writing skills, and the use of mobile typing apps among Arabic-speaking undergraduate students by analyzing which skills were affected by typing via mobile apps. A total of 276 Arabic-speaking undergraduate students in Saudi Arabia participated in this study. By applying structural equation modeling to analyze the quantitative data, results revealed that use of mobile typing apps had the strongest effect on the academic writing skills of clarity and cohesiveness. Meanwhile, using mobile typing apps to accomplish academic tasks had less impact on accuracy and vocabulary. Several pedagogical and technical implications are presented at the end of the study.