The Cognitive Impact of Off-Task Smartphone Use in the College Classroom
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I am prompted by this topic because, as an instructor and also a classroom observer of the adjuncts in my program, I see students on their phones and laptops, blatantly performing activities unrelated to the lesson. It is a source of frustration for me, but not so much about the etiquette concerns (although that is a valid argument against off-task smartphone use), but rather the impact that the smartphone technology (again, off-task, such as social media, surfing the web, emailing friends, texting friends, etc.) has on students’ brains in a learning setting.
I believe that change has occurred in some stages already, but it all depends on the instructor’s personal smartphone use policy. As a program director, I meet weekly with department chairs in the Undergraduate College, and smartphone use is a topic that arises on occasion. There are differing opinions on what a sound smartphone use in the classroom policy is: some instructors are firm believers that the best way to deal with the concern is to embrace it, and treat students like “adults”; and some instructors are firm believers that such tolerance enables dependency, distracts from learning, and is an annoyance to students who are directly engaged in the session.
For example, one recent study found that college students better perform in cases when instructors encourage smartphone use (Nand, Hameed, Kanwal, Pitafi, & Rasheed, 2018). By contrast, another study demonstrates that college students more often than not use their smartphones during classroom lectures are using their devices for personal and off-topic reasons, which distracts the greater class as a whole from focused, effective learning (Flanigan & Kiewra, 2018).
I believe that there is not a singular smartphone use policy across the institution due, in part, to the divergence between teaching methodologies in this regard, and more importantly, to academic freedom. So one question is: does imposing a standardized smartphone use policy across the institution (for campus-based classes, of course) hinder academic freedom? And, if so, are there other, less severe standardized efforts the institution can make: such as guidelines in all undergraduate syllabi, for example. I really don’t know. If the data supports that policy change or guideline inclusion is a good thing for student learning, I question whether it will lead to change within the institution. It will depend on how drastic (or not drastic) the results are. If the results are drastic (i.e., off-task smartphone use during class sessions negatively impacts cognitive attainment, processing, retention of information), then I think NLU’s UGC might take change into consideration.
