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This paper explores how the use of smartphones vs. laptops influences students' engagement, behaviour and experience watching academic videos in a collaborative classroom. Experiments were run in authentic teaching sessions with a total of 483 first-year higher education students. The methodology applied is a quasi-experimental design with post-test-only, being the independent variable, the device used to visualise the academic videos. Results indicate that the use of laptops has provided better results in terms of student's engagement with the videos, their collaborative behaviour and satisfaction with the device. Hence, the findings of this research suggest that the type of mobile device used in activities that consider the use of videos in a collaborative class need to be carefully chosen to maximise the student's comfortability – and in consequence, their engagement with the video-based learning activity and their positive behaviour and experience within the collaborative context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the challenge laid down over 15 years ago that ergonomics needs to report on the reliability and validity of its methods if it is to maintain its standing amongst the engineering community. Unfortunately, a review of books reporting on ergonomics methods since that time shows very little change. The theoretical constructs of reliability and validity are presented together with the rationale for conducting studies of training in ergonomics methods. Revisiting the original study shows the way in which such validation work can be undertaken and data reported. It is hoped that this article provides the stimulus for more studies of this nature now the approach has been demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]