Smartphone como herramienta de ense?anza-aprendizaje en Educaci?n Superior en Nicaragua

The progress of technology applied to the field of education is allowing its integration in the development of academic activities in higher education, specifically, the smartphone is positioning itself as a technological tool with great educational potential. This research presents a descriptive analysis of the perception of 525 university students from three regional multidisciplinary faculties of the UNAN-Managua (Nicaragua) on the importance, knowledge, and use of smartphones in the teaching-learning processes, the benefits and difficulties of the introduction of these technological devices as useful tools in higher education contexts, as well as issues related to training needs in this regard. The research methodology is quantitative and a short version of the instrument "Smartphone and University Questionnaire. Student Perspective. SUQS" is used in order to collect data. Among the main results, it is worth mentioning that most of the students participating in this study indicate having experienced some kind of educational practice where the teacher has introduced the smartphone in class in a didactic way, giving relevant importance to the use of the smartphone for various academic activities, valuing positively that teachers use this device during the development of their teaching and demanding training for the improvement of competences in this area. In any case, there are significant differences in the results obtained among students from the three faculties in different items, as well as among students from different careers or taking into account their place of origin.