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Student use of mobile devices in university lectures
Neil Roberts, Michael Rees
Bond University, Australia
Mobile devices are increasingly used by students in university lectures. This has resulted in
controversy and the banning of mobile devices in some lectures. Although there has been
some research into how students use laptop computers in lectures, there has been little
investigation into the wider use of mobile devices. This study was designed to investigate
which mobile devices students use, what they use them for and the duration of each activity
within 1 hour lectures. Students in six cross faculty core classes (n=74 students total) at
Bond University responded to a survey asking them to document and comment on their
mobile device use over the previous hour at the end of their lecture. A focus group of
students who had not been surveyed was conducted to cross-validate the survey results. The
key results were that 66% of students responding to the survey reported using a mobile
device in the lecture. Of this group, 45% used a mobile phone and 38% a laptop. The most
common activity was typing notes on a laptop, followed by accessing lecture slides. The
vast majority of mobile device usage was on task and related to the lecture.
Introduction
In society today, mobile devices are pervasive in all aspects of daily life at home, for leisure, during study
and at work. These devices exist in an ever-widening range of computer hardware types and include
smartphones, tablets, netbooks, and laptops. These mobile devices are now regarded as essential learning
tools (Traxler, XXXXXXXXXXIt is therefore unsurprising to see them proliferate in the higher education student
population. At universities, 87% of students own laptops, more than half have a smartphone, and 8% own
an iPad (Dahlstrom, de Boor, Grunwald, & Vockley, XXXXXXXXXXKinash, Brand, Mathew and Kordyban (2011)
found that 48% of students
ought their laptops to lectures, while according to Abilene Christian
University (2011), 89% of students
ought a mobile device to class. The cu
ent generation of students
are “accustomed to operating in a digital environment for communication, information gathering and
analysis”, tend to be “always on” (Oblinger, 2004, p. 2) and are focussed on connectedness and social
interaction. They tend to multitask and, according to McMahon and Pospisil (2005), they have “lots of
things ‘on the go’ at once” (p. 425).
This rise in popularity of mobile devices has led some lecturers and universities to ban them in lectures,
ecause of the wide range of distractions that they give students access to (Baron, 2013; Conway, 2013).
The use of mobile devices in lectures is changing rapidly, and although there are some reports of how
students are using their laptops in lectures (e.g. Fried, 2008; Lauricella & Kay, 2010) little attention has
een paid to the specific actions that students undertake with other mobile devices such as iPads and
mobile phones during a lecture. Since a major reason that these devices have been banned in lectures is
that it is believed they are being used for off task activities, it is important to have a clear understanding
of what students use them for.
This paper investigates what mobile devices students use, what they use them for and the duration of each
activity within 1 hour lectures.
Background
Mobile devices offer many advantages to students at university (Annan-Coultas, 2006), enabling them to
take and edit notes neatly, as well as to organise and structure notes effectively without messy paper
handling (Mu
ay, XXXXXXXXXXAnother significant benefit of electronic notes is the ability to search for
concepts and to redefine the structure and note order (Weaver & Nilson, XXXXXXXXXXNotes documents can also
e shared and synchronised with other mobile devices so that they can be accessed anywhere (Schepman,
Rodway, Beattie, & Lambert, XXXXXXXXXXFurthermore, students can access instructor-provided class materials
instantly and search and access public multimedia and other material online (Hall & Elliott, 2003).
McCreary (2009), for example, found that 77.8% of law students surveyed went online to look up cases,
statutes or lecture-related material. Mobile devices can also be used to provide immediate response to the
Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2014, 30(4).
416
lecturer through a Twitter feed (Young, 2010) or the use of real-time online poll apps (Law, 2012).
Feedback from student focus groups by Kinash, Brand and Mathew XXXXXXXXXXindicated that students found
learning resources on iPads efficient, engaging and interactive, and commented on the portability and
lower environmental impact as compared to bound textbooks, paper and pen.
Despite these advantages, there is some opposition to student use of mobile devices in lectures (Maxwell,
2007; Yamamoto, 2008) due to issues with distractions, note taking and lack of discussion in lectures,
among others (Mu
ay, XXXXXXXXXXConsequently, some classes and university authorities are using bans and
‘Internet kill’ switches to prevent laptop usage (Foster, 2008; Luther, 2012).
One commonly cited reason for opposition is the potential for distraction (Colb, 2006; Mu
ay, 2011).
Mobile devices enable students to access games, social media, email and chat, as well as to watch movies,
shop and surf the internet, among others. These diversions are not only distracting for the student who is
using the mobile device, but also for other su
ounding students (Yamamoto, XXXXXXXXXXDistractions such as
the noise of typing or a colourful light-emitting screen can also affect nea
y students, and many lecturers
have made reference to the sense of disconnection of students using laptops (Maxwell, 2007; McCreary,
2009; Yamamoto, XXXXXXXXXXSome lecturers request laptop users to sit near the front (Young, 2006) or near
the back (McCreary, 2009) of the lecture room to decrease distraction to themselves and other students.
However, it has been argued that distractions in lectures are nothing new, and unrelated multitasking can
e compared with traditional low tech distractions such as doodling or note passing (Hem
ooke & Gay,
2003; Lauricella & Kay, XXXXXXXXXXConversely, Maxwell XXXXXXXXXXpoints out that few lecturers would allow
students to openly read a newspaper or play solitaire on the desk in front of them, and the nature of the
distraction of mobile devices is far greater, which leads to a decrease in student engagement in the
classroom.
Traxler XXXXXXXXXXstated that there is another side to disruption, and that mobile devices “allow students to
access and store images and information of their own choosing and perhaps create and distribute new
images and information independently of the lecturers and of the university” (p.157). In other words,
ather than characterising student use of mobile devices as distraction, Traxler wrote that student-centred
flexible use of learning resources through mobile devices means that the university and lecturer are no
longer the gatekeepers of information.
The literature suggests that laptops tend to be used for polarised tasks, “either to assist the student to
follow the class, or to engage in a task unrelated to the class” (Barkhuus, 2003, p.4). In research
conducted by Kinash, Brand, Mathew and Kordyban (2011), for example, half the students who took their
laptops to lectures reported that they used their device primarily to access the learning management
system (Blackboard) for the subject. Half the students stated that they went on Facebook, a third stated
that they accessed Wikipedia and a third texted during the lecture. Similarly, in a survey on laptop use in
lectures among law students (McCreary, 2009), 96.1% of participants reported that they used their laptops
to take notes. However, at the same time, 70.5% reported that they surfed the web during the class, and
14.5% used their laptops to play games.
It would also appear that multitasking during lectures is common (Gay & Grace-Martin, 2001;
Hem
ooke & Gay, XXXXXXXXXXFried (2008), for example, found that students with laptops used them during
48.7% of the lecture time. Over this period they multitasked for an average of 17 minutes of each 75
minute lecture. This included checking email (81%), using instant messaging (68%), surfing the web
(43%), playing games (25%) and other activities (35%). Similarly, Kraushaar and Novak XXXXXXXXXXused
analysis of voluntary installation of monitoring software on student computers and found that of every
100 productive windows open, students opened 33 distractive windows related to surfing and
entertainment, 27 windows related to email, and 43 related to instant messaging. They found that students
multi-tasked
heavily using laptops, and actively used non course-related software applications for
approximately 42% of the lecture. In another study, McCreary XXXXXXXXXXfound that 38.4% of law students
used instant messaging during lectures, and 42.1% went on line for general surfing, such as shopping.
In terms of mobile phone usage and tablet use in lectures, relatively little has been researched as to how
they are used. Mobile phones are extremely common in lectures. Kinash, Brand, Mathew and Kordyban
(2011) for example, found that 96% of students
ought their mobile phone to class and that students used
mobile phones and laptops equally during lectures. However, mobile phones appear to be used mainly for
Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2014, 30(4).
417
off task activities with students reporting that 80% of mobile use was dedicated to social networking, 75%
for web
owsing and 68% for email (Kinash et al., XXXXXXXXXXSimilarly, research conducted by Smith,
Salaway and Bo
eson Caruso (2009)