Publish at November 20 2012 Updated October 09 2024
A Pew Internet & American Life Project survey of 2,462 public high school teachers, the results of which are published under the title "How Teens Do Research in the Digital World", concludes that a large majority of teachers agree with the following assertions:
Two-thirds of respondents believe that digital technologies distract students more than they help them academically. On the other hand, 77% consider that technologies have a positive impact on their research habits, making them more thorough and complex, but at the same time diminishing their ability to concentrate and manage their time, which is becoming an increasingly important issue.
These data, in terms of the number of respondents, go beyond teachers' impressions and are beginning to resemble more objective findings. But what are the real effects on learning?
Research conducted by California State University psychology professor Larry Rosen with 263 high school and university students involved observing them for fifteen minutes while they studied at home, with the aim of finding out whether they were able to stay focused, and if not, what might be distracting them. Every minute, the observer noted exactly what they were doing: studying, texting, listening to music, watching the TV that was left on or, if they were in front of their computer screen, which site they were visiting.
Even though the students knew their study habits were being observed, they were only able to stay focused for an average of 3 to 5 minutes before starting to lose focus. For all of them, distractions came from :
Unsurprisingly, those who stay focused and have mastered study strategies perform better academically. The worst performers are those who consume the most media each day and are accustomed to multitasking. In other words, the ability to concentrate or distract is an excellent indicator of future success in academic tasks.
An astonishing result was revealed: if a student goes on Facebook even once during this 15-minute period, he or she performs significantly less well academically than someone who doesn't, whether they do it once or several times in that time. The effect is perceptible not only on his momentary concentration, but also on his overall academic performance.
Intrigued by these results, the researchers asked several thousand students to explain why they were so easily distracted. Most said that, alerted by a beep, vibration or flash, they felt obliged or seized the opportunity to go and see what was going on.
More interestingly, even without these signals, students are constantly disturbed by their own thoughts such as "I wonder if anyone commented on my Facebook post", "I wonder if my friend replied to the message I just sent him" and other such musings.
In another experiment, a group of students were shown a video and told that their understanding of the subject would then be assessed. All were also told that they would receive and have to respond to text messages, but were not told how many they would have to deal with or when they would receive them. In fact, one third of the group received 4 messages, another third received 8 messages and the final third received none.
Those who received all 8 messages had the worst results in video comprehension, "D" on average. And the other two groups (those who received 4 messages and those who received none) scored the same, "C". The possibility of being disturbed seems to be as bad as actually being disturbed. The students with the best results were those who chose not to respond immediately to the messages, and waited for the best moment to do so. This shows that controlling one's attention is a key factor in successful learning and memorization.
It should also be noted that 75% of teenagers and young adults check their devices every 15 minutes or even more often. If they can't do this, they become anxious; and we know that anxiety inhibits learning...
Communication technologies are not going away any time soon. This raises the question of how to help students concentrate in class or online. No matter how well we develop high-quality teaching, if the environment degrades it by dispersing learners' attention, the result will inevitably be poor.
We suggest that teachers institute "techno breaks" so that everyone can perform this operation simultaneously. These breaks can be taken every 15 minutes to start with, then gradually spaced out. It seems that the maximum tolerable period for a group of connected young people is 30 minutes.
For online students, self-discipline, the quality of the study environment and the quality of the teaching materials are all important. The challenge for many webinars or video recordings is to be more interesting than the devices and services which, pleasantly, will take advantage of the slightest drop in interest...
Photo : Annabel_P on Pixabay
References
How Teens Do Research in the Digital World
Driven to distraction: How to help wired students learn to focus (.pdf)
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