Teachers’ Perspectives Toward Smartphone Usage by Students and Resulting Classroom Policies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32674/e9drqn92Keywords:
Social engagement, Problematic smartphone use, Academic achievement, High school students, Smartphone policyAbstract
Currently, 95% of American teenagers own a smartphone device, and smartphone users spend on average about 5.4 hours a day on them. Smartphone ownership, usage, and dependency are higher among teens and young adults than in any other age group. This study addressed a gap in research by examining high school teachers’ perspectives on two topics: the impact of smartphone usage on students and classroom smartphone policies. It contributes to a deeper understanding of the social, psychological, and academic effects of smartphone use on students and of the impact of teachers’ beliefs surrounding smartphones on the classroom policies they set regarding those devices. In addition, this study aimed to shed light on the need to create effective and equitable smartphone policies and practices to help promote a classroom environment conducive to learning. Survey data from 248 teachers from six high schools in the Southern California region of the United States of America produced results indicating that teachers who have stronger negative beliefs concerning the social, psychological and academic effects of smartphones on students typically set a stricter classroom smartphone policy. Implications include helping students regulate their smartphone usage so that these devices can be effective tools for learning, not a distraction. Based on the findings from this study, an increase in face-to-face social interactions among students is recommended to increase academic achievement and decrease problematic smartphone use.
Downloads
References
Ajzen, I. (1985). From intentions to actions: A theory of planned behavior. In J. Kuhl & J. Beckmann (Eds.), Action control: From cognition to behavior (pp. 11–39). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-69746-3_2
Anderson, M. (2019). Mobile technology and home broadband 2019. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/06/13/mobile-technology-and-home-broadband-2019/
Beland, L. P., & Murphy, R. (2016). Ill communication: Technology, distraction & student performance. Labour Economics, 41, 61–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2016.04.004
Berry, M. J., & Westfall, A. (2015). Dial D for distraction: The making and breaking of cell phone policies in the college classroom. College Teaching, 63(2), 62–71. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/87567555.2015.1005040
Billieux, J. (2012). Problematic use of the mobile phone: A literature review and a pathways model. Current Psychiatry Reviews, 8(4), 299–307. https://doi.org/10.2174/ 157340012803520522
Bjornsen, C. A., & Archer, K. J. (2015). Relations between college students’ cell phone use during class and grades. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 1(4), 326–336. https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000045
Campbell, S. W. (2006). Perceptions of mobile phones in college classrooms: Ringing, cheating, and classroom policies. Communication Education, 55(3), 280–294. https://doi.org/10. 1080/03634520600748573
Coşkun, Y. D., & Cumaoğlu, G. K. (2013). Scale of teachers’ beliefs on the effect of the use of mobile devices on students. Procedia: Social and Behavioral Sciences, 106, 2299–2306. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.12.263
Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (5th ed). Sage Publications.
Dwyer, R. J., Kushlev, K., & Dunn, E. W. (2018). Smartphone use undermines enjoyment of face-to-face social interactions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 78, 233–239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2017.10.007
Edwards, M. (2015, March 17). How social media has changed how we communicate. Future of Work. https://fowmedia. com/social-media-changed-communicate/
Elder, A. (2013). College students’ cell phone use, beliefs, and effects on their learning. College Student Journal, 47(4), 585–592.
End, C. M., Worthman, S., Mathews, M. B., & Wetterau, K. (2009). Costly cell phones: The impact of cell phone rings on academic performance. Teaching of Psychology, 37(1), 55–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/00986280903425912
Epley, N., & Schroeder, J. (2014). Mistakenly seeking solitude. Journal of Experimental Psychology General, 143(5), 1980–1999. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037323
Fernandez, S. (2018). University student’s perspectives on using cell phones in classrooms: Are they dialing up disaster? The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 17(1), 246–258.
Hartnell-Young, E., & Vetere, F. (2008). A means of personalising learning: Incorporating old and new literacies in the curriculum with mobile phones. Curriculum Journal, 19(4), 283–292. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585170802509872
Higgins, J. (2013, August 7). More schools use cellphones as learning tools. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/personal/2013/08/07/views-shift-on-cell-phones-in-schools/2607381/
Hurst, B., Wallace, R., & Nixon, S. B. (2013). The impact of social interaction on student learning. Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts, 52(4), 5.
Kadvany, E. (2019, September 27). The cost of cellphones: Teachers, students, parents debate banning phones from classrooms. Palo Alto Weekly. https://paloaltoonline.com/ news/2019/09/27/the-cost-of-cellphones-teachers-students-parents-debate-banning-phones-from-classrooms
Kalyuga, S. (2011). Cognitive load theory: How many types of load does it really need? Educational Psychology Review, 23(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-010-9150-7
Klein, A. (2019). Schools say no to cell phones in class. But is it a smart move? Education Week, 39(4), 10–11.
Kwon, M., Kim, D. J., Cho, H., & Yang, S. (2013). The smartphone addiction scale: Development and validation of a short version for adolescents. PLoS One, 8(12), e83558. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083558
Lancaster, A. L. (2018). Student learning with permissive and restrictive cell phone policies: A classroom experiment. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 12(1), Article 5. https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2018.120105
McGreevy, P. (2019, March 20). More California students may be banned from using cellphones at school under new bill. The Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-school-smartphone-ban-20190320-story.html
Moawad, G. E., & Ebrahem, G. G. S. (2016). The relationship between use of technology and parent-adolescents social relationship. Journal of Education and Practice, 7(14), 168–178.
National Center on Education and the Economy. (2018). Statistic of the month: How much time do students spend in school? https://ncee.org/2018/02/statistic-of-the-month-how-much-time-do-students-spend-in-school/
Perrin, A. (2017). 10 facts about smartphones. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch. org/fact-tank/2017/06/28/10-facts-about-smartphones/
Pew Research Center. (2019). Mobile fact sheet. https://www.pewresearch.org/Intenet/fact-sheet/mobile/
Poll, H. (2015). Pearson student mobile device survey 2015. National report: College students. https://www.pearsoned.com/wp-content/uploads/2015-Pearson-Student-Mobile-Device-Survey-College.pdf
Pupils: Use of Smartphones, Cal. Educ. Code § 48901.7. (2019).
Rideout, V. J., & Robb, M. B. (2019). The common sense census: Media use by tweens and teens. Common Sense Media.
Sandstrom, G. M., & Dunn, E. W. (2014). Social interactions and well-being: The surprising power of weak ties. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40(7), 910–922. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167214529799
Shelton, J. T., Elliott, E. M., Eaves, S. D., & Exner, A. L. (2009). The distracting effects of a ringing cell phone: An investigation of the laboratory and the classroom setting. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 29(4), 513–521. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2009.03. 001
Silver, L., Huang, C., & Taylor, K. (2019). In emerging economies, smartphone and social media users have broader social networks. Pew Research Center. https://www. pewresearch.org/internet/2019/08/22/in-emerging-economies-smartphone-and-social-media-users-have-broader-social-networks/
Smith, C. A., Parks, R., Parrish, J., & Swirski, R. (2018). Disruptive silence: Deepening experiential learning in the absence of technology. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 18(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/14729679.2016.1244646
Smith-Stoner, M. (2012). Class is about to start: Please turn on your cell phones: 10 uses for cell phones in nursing education. Teaching and Learning in Nursing, 7(2), 42–46. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.teln.2011.09.005
Spiratos, K., & Ratanasiripong, P. (2023). Problematic smartphone use among high school students. Journal of School Administration Research and Development, 8(2), 76-86.
Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning. Cognitive Science, 12(2), 257–285. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog1202_4
Sweller, J., Van Merrienboer, J. J., & Paas, F. G. (1998). Cognitive architecture and instructional design. Educational Psychology Review, 10(3), 251–296. https://doi.org/10.1023/A: 1022193728205
Tangmunkongvorakul, A., Musumari, P. M., Tsubohara, Y., Ayood, P., Srithanaviboonchai, K., Techasrivichien, T., ... & Kihara, M. (2020). Factors associated with smartphone addiction: A comparative study between Japanese and Thai high school students. PLoS One, 15(9), e0238459.
Tateno, M., Kim, D. J., Teo, A. R., Skokauskas, N., Guerrero, A. P., & Kato, T. A. (2019). Smartphone addiction in Japanese college students: Usefulness of the Japanese version of the smartphone addiction scale as a screening tool for a new form of internet addiction. Psychiatry Investigation, 16(2), 115.
Taylor, K., & Silver, L. (2019). Smartphone ownership is growing rapidly around the world, but not always equally. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/02/ 05/smartphone-ownership-is-growing-rapidly-around-the-world-but-not-always-equally/
Telhaj, S. (2018). Do social interactions in the classroom improve academic attainment? IZA World of Labor 2018, Article 440 https://doi.org/10.15185/izawol.440
Thomas, K. M., O’Bannon, B. W., & Bolton, N. (2013). Cell phones in the classroom: Teachers’ perspectives of inclusion, benefits, and barriers. Computers in the Schools, 30(4), 295–308. https://doi.org/10.1080/07380569.2013.844637
van Velthoven, M. H., Powell, J., & Powell, G. (2018). Problematic smartphone use: Digital approaches to an emerging public health problem. Digital Health, 4, 1–9. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/2055207618759167
Ward, A. F., Duke, K., Gneezy, A., & Bos, M. W. (2017). Brain drain: The mere presence of one’s own smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2(2), 140–154. https://doi.org/10.1086/691462
Weisskirch, R. S. (2009). Parenting by cell phone: Parental monitoring of adolescents and family relations. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 38(8), 1123–1139. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s10964-008-9374-8
Williams, E. A., Zwolak, J. P., Dou, R., & Brewe, E. (2019). Linking engagement and performance: The social network analysis perspective. Physics Education Research, 15(2), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes. 15.020150
Wolk, S. (2008). Joy in school. Educational Leadership, 66(1), 8–15.
Wood, E., Zivcakova, L., Gentile, P., Archer, K., De Pasquale, D., & Nosko, A. (2012). Examining the impact of off-task multi-tasking with technology on real-time classroom learning. Computers & Education, 58(1), 365–374. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu. 2011.08.029
Zimmerman, A. (2019, December 17). Five years later, NYC schools still struggle with de Blasio's cell phone policy. Chalkbeat New York. https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2019/12/17/ 21055617/five-years-later-nyc-schools-still-struggle-with-de-blasio-s-cell-phone-policy
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Journal of School Administration Research and Development
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
All published articles are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 Unported License.
.png)
