Smartphone Education Design Strategy for Older Adults Using Backward Design: A Scoping Review

Background and Purpose: The study identifies the needs of Korean older adult smartphone users based on published literature and presents evidence-based smartphone education design strategies. South Korea has a high rate of smartphone penetration, and the rate of smartphone ownership by older adults is increasing annually. Despite the increase of ownership, smartphone education based on the needs of older-adult-users has not been elaborated adequately, and many studies touched on older-adult-users’ difficulty in using smartphones.

The study focuses on assessing the needs through a scoping review and using backward design model to develop smartphone education design strategies. Such an approach can make smartphone education more effective by enhancing the positive experience and resolving the challenges older adults have faced using smartphone. Ultimately, it will be possible to provide meaningful and useful smartphone education to all older adults, so they can make good use of their smartphones and thus bridge the digital divide.

Methods: This study utilized a scoping review of peer-reviewed articles regarding smartphone use by older adults published in Korean journals from 2010 to 2020. The articles were retrieved from three database sites (DBpia, RISS, and KISS) using search keywords “older adults”, “smartphone”, and “smartphone use”. After removing duplicates, book reviews, theses, and conference proceedings, 34 articles met the criteria of the study. Using ATLAS.ti ver.9, we extracted keywords from 34 articles to categorize the themes. Finally, based on the derived themes, learning and instructional strategies for smartphone education were made through the backward design process. The backward design model consists of three big steps: identifying the desired results, determining acceptable evidence, and planning learning experiences and instruction.

Findings: Two themes emerged from the scoping review. First theme is positive and negative experiences the older adult smartphone users had when using smartphone. This guides smartphone education’s desired results which are to enhance the positive effects such as high self-efficacy and self-worth, and mitigate the negative impacts and difficulties such as risk of addiction and challenges in understanding terminologies. Second theme is the use of smartphone in searching health-related information and communicating. This is related to acceptable evidence and skills which can be helpful in achieving goals.

Based on these findings, the study proposes plans for the learning experiences and instruction to increase the effectiveness of smartphone education for older adults. This smartphone education strategy was designed to maximize ease of use and positive effects of using smartphone, while preventing and mitigating the negative effects. In order to achieve such goals, health information searching skills and communication application using skills would be included in smartphone user education.

Conclusion and Implications: This study used a scoping review to assess the needs of older adults related to satisfactory smartphone use. Using a backward design approach, actual published responses from older adults like those who will be trained on the smartphone can be reflected in the contents and instructional methods of future training. Therefore, we propose a modified co-production approach that adds the voices of older adults to develop more effective smartphone education.