As the debate rages in Australia about how best to handle the use of phones in class, new research from the US suggests a one-minute phone break might be the answer to enhancing student attention.
A study, published in Frontiers in Education, is one of the first to look into the effects of technology within the college environment. A “college” is post secondary, with students typically 18-22 years old.
“We show that technology breaks may be helpful for reducing cell phone use in the college classroom,” said Professor Ryan Redner, a researcher at Southern Illinois University and lead author of the study.
Across the course of a term, the researchers gave students either a 1, 2 or 4-minute technology break, 15 minutes into a lecture. A control group of students was not allowed to access their phones at all during the break.
The results showed that college students used their phones less often if they were given technology breaks.
Phone use was at its lowest during the one-minute technology break when compared to a 2- or 4-minute technology break.
“One possibility is that one minute is enough to read and send a smaller number of messages. If they have more time to send many messages, they may be more likely to receive messages and respond again during class,” explained Redner.
The study observed 22 class periods, with an average of 21 students in each.
After each class, the students were also given a short quiz to test how well they had been paying attention. While those students who had a technology break averaged slightly higher than those without technology breaks, the data was not statistically significant.
“Our hope is that it means students were less distracted during lecture, which leads to better performance,” says Redner.
“We are trying to find ways to reduce cell phone use and doing so without penalties,” says Redner, “We hope our findings inspire researchers and teachers to try approaches to reducing cell phone use that are reinforcement-based.”
Earlier this year, Associate Professor Elizabeth Edwards from the School of Education at The University of Queensland was part of a team of researchers that examined current evidence available on the advantages and disadvantages of banning phones.
“Our review of existing studies that investigated mobile phones bans in schools showed mixed results for the benefits in terms of reducing distractibility” says Edwards.
“There seemed some consensus among teachers and parents in the ‘belief’ that students were distracted by their phones, however there was a stark lack of rigorous experimental research to show this is actually the case,” she told Cosmos.
The review also investigated the phenomenon known as ‘nomophobia’, the fear of not having a mobile phone. While some studies found that access to mobile phones had a negative impact on student’s wellbeing, numerous studies reported that students were more likely to feel anxious if they were not able to regular check their phones.
Ultimately, Edwards argues that it should come down to the individual class teacher and what they think is best for their students, rather than implementing a blanket phone ban in schools.
“We recommend that class teachers are able to make their own decisions about phone use given that they know their students best,” says Edwards.
“This responsible engagement approach might be that teachers ask students to place their phones in a drawer, out of sight for periods of the class that require concentration and limited distraction. We also strongly recommend explicitly teaching students about the problems associated with excessive phone and social media use.”
The other problem with the mobile phone
