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Online university courses have become popular in many universities and colleges throughout the world. In addition to the relative cost‐effectiveness of online learning, there are studies that indicate that students reach satisfactory achievement levels in these courses. The major aim of the present research was two‐fold: to examine students’ academic performance in a mandatory first‐year university Internet‐based “Introduction to statistics” course and to investigate psycho‐pedagogical variables which contributed to students’ online learning, compared to learning of students who participated in a traditional lecture‐based “Introduction to statistics” course. Results of the study indicate that students who participated in the mandatory online course reached similar academic performance levels to those achieved by students who participated in the traditional lecture‐based course. In addition, the findings indicate that participation in the online course improves psycho‐pedagogical attitudes towards online learning despite the initial misgivings of the participants in the course.

The purpose of the paper is to examine the efficiency of SMS based cell‐phone vocabulary learning as compared to email vocabulary delivery and snail mail vocabulary delivery at the university level.

A total of 241 first year university students studied English vocabulary in their mandatory English foundation course. Students were divided into three groups: study via cell‐phone based SMS messages, via email messages and via snail mail delivery. Vocabulary lists were delivered weekly to students via the three delivery strategies during course. Students in the three groups were tested on English vocabulary and responded to a questionnaire that examined their attitudes toward flexibility of the learning strategy; user friendliness of the learning strategy; learner control of the learning process, learner motivation; and learner autonomy.

Results of the study indicate that there were no significant differences for achievement attained by the three groups on the vocabulary test. However, there were significant differences on students' attitudes toward flexibility of learning; user friendliness of the learning strategy; learner control of the learning process, learner motivation; and learner autonomy. The students who received SMS messages had most positive attitudes on all five factors, followed by attitudes of students who received email messages, who were followed by attitudes of students who received vocabulary via snail mail.

It appears that SMS based vocabulary delivery is perceived as more effective than email delivery which is felt to be more efficient than snail mail learning. Results of the study indicate the potential for university vocabulary learning via cell‐phone based SMS messaging.

This paper indicates the value of SMS messaging for vocabulary learning at the university level.