The presence of social media in the Swedish classroom. A study of social media usage and its possible effects during classroom instruction

Malmö högskola Lärande och samhälle Lärarutbildningen

Examensarbete VAL-projekt 15 högskolepoäng

The presence of social media in the Swedish classroom.

Michael Parmach

VAL- Utbildning LL205 Handledare: Ange handledare

Lärarutbildning 90hp 2017-06-28

Examinator: Nils Andersson Handledare: Hilma Holm

Abstract

This research aimed to test the hypothesis that mobile phone and social media usage by students during classroom instruction negatively affected academic performance. I believed students who claimed they often followed social media during lessons would have lower overall grade averages and have entered high school with fewer points than students who did not often use social media during lessons.

Goals were to examine the debate on mobile phones and social media usage in school and conduct a quantitative self-report study. Questionnaires were distributed to 64 students and 65 teachers at a secondary school in Malmö, Sweden inquiring into the frequency of and attitudes towards social media usage during classroom instruction. The study looked for correlations between such usage, the number of points with which a student entered high school and their current overall grade average. Would frequent usage of social media during lessons lead to a greater tendency for lower grades?

Results were mixed. Student groups who did not use a mobile or social media during lessons believed they had higher overall grades than groups who used a mobile or social media regardless of gender, though the believed difference was higher for females than males. Utilizing a contrived quality point system, further data analysis concluded that females who used a mobile/social media during lessons entered high school with an average of 4.8% more points than those who did not, while the opposite was true for the male groups. Males who stated they used a mobile or social media during lessons entered high school with an average of 4.4% fewer points than males who did not use such media. In general, more females used mobiles or social media in class, were more often unsure exactly how often they used them and outnumbered males (11:1) in stating they text or chat during “most” lessons.

Table of Contents

6.1 Student questionnaire results………...…………. 20.

6.1.1 Quality point results………..………... 20.

6.1.2 Breakdown of student questionnaire responses……….…...…………...21.

6.2 Teacher questionnaire results………...……….... 24.

7. Analysis ………..……….……….... 26.

1. Introduction

A student stares intently at a computer screen seemingly hard at work. Or so the teacher believes. How can one be sure if students are on task as it takes only an instant for them to click away from a social media website?

Digital learning has become all the rage but it is effective only when properly used (Fors, 2015). Technology in the classroom is commonplace as schools spend uncountable amounts of money equipping their institutions with the latest digital tools to aid instruction. However, mobile phones can now also be used to access information. But do these hand-held gadgets help or hinder pedagogy since the same Internet used to look up facts for learning also accesses social media, a classroom diversion. Would such distraction lead to poorer learning and thereby negative consequences regarding school performance?

The IT-staffing company Centric reports that two-thirds of Swedish workers use Facebook an average of fifteen minutes a day while on the job (Satz, 2015). Multiplying that by the number of Swedish workdays, 253 in 2016, totals 63.25 hours meaning 67% of the Swedish work force miss almost two weeks of work per year checking social media. How much productivity might be lost a global scale? Is it possible to translate this idea to student productivity? How many hours of instruction are missed because pupils are too busy texting or checking social media websites rather than listening to their teachers and completing their work?

Kraushaar and Novak (2010) state that many students believe they can switch back and forth between different tasks with no serious academic consequences. However, this “multitasking” has shown to dramatically increase memory errors and the processing time required to learn topics involving a significant cognitive load.

With this in mind, I wished to test the hypothesis that mobile phone and social media usage during classroom instruction would positively correlate with a lower overall grade average and fewer points with which a student entered high school. I believed there would be a pattern where students who frequently used mobile phones and social media during classroom instruction would not pay attention and miss information given by the teacher, thus negatively affecting their learning, leading to poor academic results.

I based my hypothesis on personal teaching experience and how I believed traditionally “good” students to be; they behaved properly, listened to the teacher and most importantly, were always focused on the work assigned. Interested students were motivated students. According to Dysthe (1996), motivation and involvement are prerequisites to learning while feeling there is a future need and use for this particular information is critical. Is it possible for a student to experience such a desire to learn without allowing him/herself to be fully revealed to it?

I wished to see if there was any correlation, tendency or pattern of mobile phone usage and school performance. Might extensive use of a mobile device during instruction cause inattentiveness to direction leading to poorer class performance and lower grades? Also, does such usage promote an atmosphere not conducive to learning?

I intend to show how past research and educational theories connect to my own study and then present the results from my distributed questionnaires. I will take up current discussions regarding mobiles and social media usage in the classroom, demonstrating positive and negative viewpoints within the educational system and the measures certain schools, organizations and even politicians have been forced to take and address.

2. Purpose

At the start of fall term 2015, I noticed how at some point during my lessons practically every student in my classes used mobile phones or computers for social purposes. It was fairly obvious from their staring into their laps for minutes on end, the maniacal button pressing and overall lack of ability to answer questions I posed them. This went on for several weeks until I began collecting their mobile phones at the beginning of class. A few still tried to use their computers as a social forum medium but this did not occur too often since we mainly used textbooks and workbooks rather than digital tools. Colleagues also mentioned the problems they had with unfocused students not paying attention to their lessons but only to the messages on their mobiles and computers.

This led me to wonder just how big an issue mobile/social media usage during instruction was and thus became the basis of my research. I began reading articles and debates on mobiles in class and wanted to conduct my own study to find out just how often students and teachers in my school used social media for non-academic purposes during lessons to see if there was any connection between the amount of time they used social media and academic performance.

The aims of this study were to determine how often students used social media during their lessons and, by looking at the number of points with which one entered high school and expected high school grades, did usage negatively affect academic performance? Would there be a pattern or connection between frequent social media usage, the number of points with which one entered high school and grades one received in high school? Might one be able to predict which students would achieve better academic results from looking at their social media usage? With the data, I could also measure:

• how many teachers and students used non-academic social media during instruction • how gender was a factor in the amount of usage

3. Theoretical perspective

Knowledge can be divided into two forms, tacit and explicit. Chugh (2015) states tacit knowledge may be defined as skills, ideas and experiences people have in their minds but cannot easily access because they are often not codified and readily expressed. In comparison, explicit knowledge can be quickly articulated, codified, accessed, verbalized and comfortably transmitted to others. But how is knowledge, whether tacit or explicit, formulated or understood if the informational codes are incomplete due to lack of focus when receiving the information provided? If a student is off-task and on social media, the student is not focused on the information furnished, possibly not taking in the information, processing it, understanding it and ultimately “learning” it. The more a student is off-task the less a student can receive direct instruction which may affect later reproduction of the material on an exam which may lead to poorer grades.

Some Constructivist theories maintain that “new” learning is based upon previously existing knowledge but I would like to interject that the learning process must begin somewhere. If a student fails to pay attention in class or becomes distracted due to focusing on social media or the like, the student misses information creating a knowledge gap which may prove consequential for present and therewith future learning. Säljö (2010) writes how learning in a constructivist perspective is a meaningful process. It is an operational process where the learning must be involved and where past experiences play a major role in how and what we learn. The student must be focused on the learning at hand, active and engaged in order the access the informational flow. Any distraction may compromise this.

Fried (2007) states how established findings in the areas of cognitive science and human factors would certainly lead to the prediction that laptop use, particularly with Wi-Fi access, could interfere with learning. Human attention and capacity to process information are selective and limited. Therefore too many sources of information create a cognitive overload and new information coming in may cause shifts in attention thus distracting the learner.

Ambrose et al. (2010), discuss the idea how students' prior knowledge can serve to help or hinder learning and that motivation determines, directs, and sustains what students learn. This is similar to Dysthe’s (1996) statement where motivation and involvements of experiences are

prerequisites to learning and John Dewey’s views in How We Think (1910) where there must be a need for curiosity and desire for fullness of experience.

“The most vital and significant factor in supplying the primary material whence suggestion may issue is, without doubt, curiosity…Such curiosity is the only sure guarantee of the acquisition of the primary facts upon which inference must base itself.” (Dewey, How We Think, pp. 30-31).

All cognitive functions are believed to originate in, and are explained as products of social interaction.

Stensmo (2009) writes that leadership in the classroom entails leading and organizing the class as a working collective; managing questions of discipline, order and student care; grouping students for various tasks and interaction patterns; individualizing students’ work and learning. He also brings up the ideas of how body language, facial gestures and voice pitch are social components affecting learning albeit possibly indirect. These are all important aspects, as a student busy with a mobile phone will neither be interacting with the rest of the class nor the teacher, who, according to Lpo94,

”shall proceed from the needs, prerequisites, experiences and thinking of each individual” (Swedish Ministry of Education, Lpo94 p.14).

Constructivist learning has many principles including the statements that learning is layered and contextual, consisting of meaning and systems of meaning based on understood language. Learning is achieved through deep structural understanding of concepts and transference of knowledge occurs only when it can be communicated clearly and meaningfully. Bruner (1966), in his Toward a Theory of Instruction stated:

“Instruction consists of leading the learner through a sequence of statements and restatements of a problem or body of knowledge that increase the learner’s ability to grasp, transform, and transfer what he is learning. In short, the sequence in which a learner encounters materials within a domain of knowledge affects the difficulty he will have in achieving mastery.” (p. 49)

A student cannot be led through this sequence if the student is focused on social media. The more the student is focused on social media the less the student pays attention to the instruction intended to guide that student through the sequence of statements which finally becomes information to learn. This understanding of the first layer of information is meant to

connect to a second layer of information and so forth. Missing a layer, by focusing on social media, impedes the sequence as certain information is now lacking. Bruner adds that the learner must eventually take over the corrective function. This would be impossible if the learner has not been paying attention, instead concentrating on social media. Bruner said one key concept a student should have is a predisposition to learn, which, I argue, is clearly obstructed if the student is preoccupied with social media. If a student does not learn the information due to being focused on social media, the student cannot later produce that same information in an essay or on a test thus leading to poorer academic performance.

Further aspects of learning include that details are better retained when placed within the context of an ordered and structured pattern. Information must be recognizable to the student’s experience. Sequencing must be effective. Without the sequence the code is incomplete, material is lacking and learning is thus hindered.

One of Bruner’s major theoretical frameworks postulates that learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current and past knowledge. The learner selects and transforms information, constructs hypotheses, and makes decisions, relying on a cognitive structure to do so. Cognitive structure (i.e., schema, mental models) provides meaning and organization to experiences and allows the individual to go beyond the information given.

Adding to Dewey’s idea of “learning by doing”, Bruner theorized a spiral curriculum where new learning is based on previous information continually processing and refining it. None of this can be achieved if the student is not paying attention, distracted by social media. If one is unfocused during a lesson, vital information is not being categorized and therefore lost, hampering learning which needs as much information as possible to make an informed decision.

In Vygotsky’s Mind and Society (1930), he remarks speech requires sequential processing. Each element is separately labeled and then connected in a sentence structure, making speech essentially analytical. If a student is interacting on social media and not focused on listening to classroom instruction the student misses receiving verbal information necessary to the learning process as these informational gaps interrupt the sequence for learning to occur.

It is also important for the teacher to adapt instruction from the students’ present knowledge and needs. Stensmo (2009) writes that in addition to that instruction shall be planned from students’ needs and abilities, the classroom should also be a safe, calm and secure environment. I would like to state how mobile phone and social media usage neither complement nor adhere to such an environment as an instructor may find the need to interrupt a lesson in order to ask a student to put a mobile away. This not only disrupts other students’ learning sequences but could also cause a confrontational, and maybe uncomfortable, situation for all those in the classroom, the exact opposite of what Lpo 94 wishes to create, a school which strives to be a living social community providing safety and the will and desire to learn. In Visible Learning (2008), John Hattie claims effective instruction is structured, purposeful, and aims at specific skills for the long term. This would be virtually impossible for any teacher whose time is taken up dealing with student social media usage during a lesson.

The aforementioned theories describe learning as a process, layered and itemized, weaved and textured with each individual bit of information a part of a longer sequence, which, in turn, is a part of an even longer sequence of information strung together ultimately producing a body of knowledge. A break in one or any of the links in the informational chain hampers the possibility of absolute learning.

4. Literature review

In the article “High time to get together.” (2016), Andy Hargreaves states how several reasons have been brought forward as to why Sweden has fallen so much in its PISA scores. Some believe for-profit private schools are the cause, while others blame lack of authority, as teachers are not able or do not attempt to control student mobile phone usage during lessons.

Both Erik Melin in Aftonbladet (2015) and Lovisa Olsson on SverigeRadio’s (2015) webpage write about how the mobile phone in schools debate has become political fodder. This discussion reached the highest echelons of Swedish government when Prime Minister Stefan Löfven stated that schools should have the right to remove mobile phones as a precaution. The current policy stated on the Swedish National Agency for Education’s legal guidance page (Skolverkets juridisk vägledning angående Trygghet och Studiero), says the school principal or a teacher may seize an object if it is utilized so it disturbs instruction or is a risk to the school population. A mobile phone is generally not considered disturbing if it is turned off, but if the student uses it to the point where it interferes with instruction it may be taken and returned by the end of the school day.

Collection of items

The teacher and the teacher may remove an object from a student if it is used to interfere with the education or risk injury to anyone in school or in the recreational home. In the case of objects that interfere, it is the use of the object that is the basis for disposal. For example, a mobile phone is usually not disturbing if it is turned off, but if the student manages it in another way so that the education is complicated, it interferes with the education and can be taken care of. The item should be returned by the end of the day. (The Swedish National Agency for Education, legal guidance page concerning

Security and Study Environment)

The Swedish Minister of Education, Gustav Fridolin, would like to see a framework sketch of clearer rules for mobile phone usage during lessons. Even the former Swedish Minister of Education, Jan Björklund, appointed a commission of inquiry to introduce new proposals for a better study environment in Swedish classrooms. Metta Fjelkner, former chairwoman of the National Union of Teachers stated that disturbing mobile phone usage in the classroom must be dealt with. She reiterates there should be clearer rules not only for mobile phones, but also for other technical aids during lessons. Fjelkner believes “schools have an obligation” and offers two suggestions in her report. The first is a procedure where students voluntarily relinquish their phones before the lesson and the second is legislation making it possible for

teachers to take care of mobile phones in a preventative manner. Moderata Samlingspartiet leader Anna Kinberg Batra is willing to revise the rules on cell phones in school and will look at, if necessary, a change in the law. She added that although it is important to use new technology in school, the teacher should be able to ensure there is order and peace or else students will not learn. While Björklund’s proposal for stricter mobile rules is supported, Löfven’s comments met opposition on several fronts.

In Anders Wollner’s article regarding a ban of mobile phones in the classroom, Jan Gulliksen, professor at The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) urges schools to let technology run free stating,

“Students often have better technology in their cell phones than in the school's computers. Many see the mobile usage in schools as a discipline problem. It should of course not be a reason for not going ahead with using technology from an educational perspective.” (Idg.se 7/23/2015)

Johanna Jaara Åstrand, head of Lärarförbundet, a professional trade union for teachers, is also critical. As she stated in Svenska Dagbladet:

"It creates enormous frustration for teachers when our leading politicians choose to address this kind of non-issue." (6/6/2015)

According to her, the law already exists, and she also points out that many teachers use mobiles as educational tools.

Olin-Scheller et al. (2016) hold a contrary opinion to the mobile phone ban. In their project, ”Online classroom”, they observed students using their mobile phones for non-academic purposes, but they claim this was mainly done during student ”down time”, when the students did not have to actively participate, i.e., listen to the teacher, take notes, or when the lesson was not interesting enough. The researchers believe a general ban of mobile phones in the classroom is not feasible and instruction should contribute to student development in working with digital tools.

Sally Weale (2015) writes how, in England, the impact of mobile phones on students’ behavior is to be investigated as part of a wider inquiry aimed at improving teachers’ classroom management. Tom Bennet, a teacher and behavior expert, is leading a government-commissioned review on how to improve training new teachers in dealing with unruly classroom behavior with the Department of Education wishing to primarily focus on the

potentially disruptive influence of mobile devices on learning. One-third of English schools already ban mobile phones claiming they distract and disrupt lessons, while another fifth of the schools limit mobile phone usage. Ebbsfleet Academy in Kent states General Certificate of Secondary Education results have almost doubled since the school banned smartphones in 2013.

The chief inspector of schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, believes there is no room for mobiles in classrooms yet many schools are introducing, at early ages, new and expensive technology, to aid learning. Bennet says the widespread adoption of tablets had unhelpful effects in some schools with students “misusing them to surf the net” and “hurl insults at each other”. Britain’s Department of Education says technology, including tablets and smart phones, can enhance educational experience but it must be used appropriately, and one spokesperson reports, “Teachers, however, have reported that the growing number of children bringing personal devices into classrooms is hindering teaching and leading to disruption.”

Britain’s School Minister Nick Gibb explains, “We need to make sure the advice we give to schools and the approaches being used across the country are for the 21st century when even primary school pupils may be bringing in phones or tablets…we will now probe deeper into behavior more generally to ensure no child has to put up with having their education disrupted by misbehavior.”

Kraushaar and Novak’s (2010) study examined undergraduate student usage of laptop computers during a lecture-style class. Through student surveys and spyware in student computers to monitor activity, the researchers noted how students had non-course related software applications open and active 42% of the time. They found a statistically significant inverse relationship between the ratios of distractive versus productive multitasking behavior during lectures and academic performance. This may be explained by:

“While routine or familiar tasks can often be performed with relatively little cognitive effort, more complex, new, or unfamiliar tasks pose a cognitive processing load that may exceed the capacity of an individual’s working memory. If this happens, some of the primary information will not be encoded in long-term memory and will be lost.” (p. 242)

They also expressed how students understated the frequency of email and instant messaging use in the classroom when self-reporting on their laptop usage.

Kuznekoff et al. (2015), write how several studies have found that students who text, or use other technologies in class, are generally outperformed by those students who abstain from these behaviors while other studies found multitasking distracting for those students seated

around the multitasker.

They also examined mobile phone use in the classroom using an experimental design to study how message content (related or unrelated to class lecture) and message creation (responding to or creating a message) impact student learning. Participants in eight experimental groups and a control group watched a video lecture, took notes, and completed tests of student learning. The control and relevant message groups earned a 10– 17% higher letter grade, scored 70% higher on recalling information, and scored 50% higher on note-taking than students who composed tweets or responded to irrelevant messages. Sending/receiving messages unrelated to class content negatively impacted learning and note taking, while related messages did not appear to have a significant negative impact.

Also discussed was how the majority of US college students owns mobile phones, brings them to class and uses them in class on a regular basis. At one university, 95% of respondents, all students, reported they always brought their mobile phone with them to class and roughly 92% admitted to sending or receiving a text message in class at least once or twice, while 30% do this daily.

Lagerlöf (2016) questions just how students are able to deal with all the digital distractions they are subjected to and just what this implies to classroom instruction, citing a study claiming people look at their mobile phones 221 times a day. A Swedish National Agency for Education latest IT follow-up study shows that 33% of all high school students interrupt their own instruction by sending and receiving text messages or using some type of social media (Skolverkets Förslag på en nationell IT-strategi för skola och förskola). Almost 17% of those students are bothered by others’ texting/social media usage (reflecting Kuznekoff et al.’s findings), and roughly 67% of teachers believe their work is disturbed by such actions.

The same article states how PhD candidate Torbjörn Ott has analyzed “the mobile phones in schools debate” in Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter since 1996, noticing a marked difference in attitudes over time. At first the articles were positive, as it was believed the mobile phone

could be used as a technological advancement in the classroom. However, more recent articles view mobile phones in the classroom as problematic. Ott also asserts these one-sided arguments worsen the situation believing there is no getting around the fact mobile phones are a big part of our lives so we should focus on using phones as learning tools. A school cannot be mobile-free if the outside world is not.

Beland and Murphy’s (2015) study “Ill Communication: The Impact of Mobile Phones on

Student Performance”, published by the Centre for Economic Performance at London School

of Economics, reveals the possible effects a school ban on mobile phones would have on test results and productivity. They found after a school banned mobile phones, the test scores improved by 6.4%, the equivalent of adding five days to the school year. The researchers looked at the mobile phone usage rules of schools in four British cities comparing them to the academic achievement of students aged 11 to 16 and found a general improvement though results varied from group to group. The greatest effect was shown on the lowest-performing and low-income students while there was no significant effect on the best performers.

The idea was to show how digital tools were distractions, negatively affecting student performance although they would not absolutely rule out possible benefits as it depended on the student’s employment of the device saying modern technology is used in the classroom to engage students and improve performance. There are, however, potential drawbacks as well, as they could lead to distractions.

A study on technological benefits conducted by Princeton University researchers Pam A. Mueller and Daniel M. Oppenheimer (2014) focused on the learning process between students who took notes by hand compared to those using laptops. Their findings demonstrated that laptop note-takers performed worse on conceptual questions than students using longhand, speculating that laptop users have a tendency to transcribe lectures verbatim which is detrimental to learning as students who take notes longhand process received information and put it into their own words thus adding an additional layer of learning to the process.

5. Methodology

Any literature on student mobile phone and social media usage in the classroom I read focused on either British high schools or American universities. As nothing pertained to Swedish high schools, the basis for my research was set.

The self-report study was quantitative through the distribution of two different questionnaires, one to students and one to teachers, at the high school where I am currently employed. The questionnaires vary slightly in formation as primary focus was on the students. Consequently, their version was a bit more in-depth with thirteen questions whereas teachers were only asked six. Several questions are found on both versions.

When conducting research one must consider its validity, reliability, response analysis and ethics. Validity may be divided into internal validity and external validity. Internal validity states that the instruments or procedures used in the research truly measured what they were supposed to measure. External validity shows the results can be generalized beyond the immediate study. Reliability is based on whether a study can repeatedly produce the same results. Response analysis may be external, where a person may not choose to participate in a study, or internal, where certain participants only answer certain questions (Seimyr, 2016).

According to the humanities and social sciences division at the University of Gothenburg (2002) research ethics may be broken down into four main requirements:

1. The information requirement, where the researcher shall inform those participating about the research assignment.

2. The consent requirement where research participants are entitled to decide on their participation.

3. The confidentiality requirement, where information on the participants is given the highest possible level of confidentiality and personal data may not be accessed to those without authorization.

4. The utilization requirement, where data collected on individuals may only be used for research purposes.

I chose to use questionnaires, as they were more anonymous and less time-consuming than individually interviewing 129 people. I believe the study meets the internal validity

requirements since there were direct questions regarding social media usage by students and teachers. I do not believe there is much external validity as there were mixed results to the hypothesis that there would be a direct correlation between the amount one used social media and grades/points with which entered high school. I believe there is reliability as a standard questionnaire was used and one would answer the same way if asked the same questions again on another questionnaire no matter who may have distributed it. With response analysis, 100% the students who were asked to participate in the study did so. Sixty percent of possible teachers actually took part. Practically all those participating in the study answered every question on the questionnaire.

I consider the four main ethical requirements met as:

1. Every participant was duly informed as to what the study was about. 2. That one could choose not to participate.

3. The questionnaires of those participating were anonymous and all information was only in my possession.

4. All information from the questionnaires has only been used for this research paper.

The simplest way to distribute and collect the largest number of student questionnaires in the least amount of time was to use the students in my own classes. I taught two English level 5 classes, 64 students between the ages of 16-18, during the fall term of 2015 and asked those first-year students if they would care to be in my study, filling out an anonymous questionnaire regarding their mobile phone and social media usage during instruction (all classes). Both groups eagerly agreed and completed them at the end of one of our lessons. Those few who were absent filled out questionnaires at the end of our lesson later that week.

At a personnel meeting I asked colleagues to fill out a short questionnaire with respect to mobile phone and social media usage in the classroom. I explained how this information would be part of the final thesis towards my teaching certification and they were happy to do it. A few mentioned how this was an apt topic and if I could publish the results or give a presentation on my findings at a future meeting. Sixty-five teachers comprising every class year and most subjects responded. Due to time constraints writing this paper, personnel not at the meeting were not asked to fill out the questionnaires at a later date. Only lead teachers filled out the questionnaires. Administrative personnel, principals and support staff were not

included. The high school has a half-dozen programs of study, roughly 150 staff members and 1,000 students, many of whom go on to further education. A cross-section of my respondents reflects the general Malmö population.

Subjects answered by circling appropriate responses already printed on the page. Teachers were asked their gender, subject(s) taught and six questions pertaining to student and their own mobile phone/social media usage in their classes. Students were asked their gender, class year, with how many points they entered high school, thirteen questions on how often they used their mobile phones and social media in class, if they thought their usage affected their grades and if it affected their teachers’ instruction.

Language was an occasional obstacle since the questionnaires were in English, neither the students’ nor school personnel’s native tongues. This occasionally led to a bit of confusion when a follow-up question was based on the previous question’s answer. Also, as Swedish is not my first language, it is possible I may have missed certain subtleties when reading and gathering information from Swedish texts or listening to Swedish television and radio debates.

There is a present movement in Swedish to use the gender-neutral word “hen” which does not reveal an individual’s gender. We have had instances at our school where students and teachers refused to state whether they are “male” or “female” on official documents or informal polls and surveys during the academic year. Because my mother tongue, English, does not have a direct translation of the Swedish “hen”, I was hesitant to even inquire into the person’s gender on the questionnaire as it might cause someone discomfort in defining it. However, since one of the goals of the thesis was to see if there was any significant gender difference in mobile phone and social media usage I left the gender question in.

Students were divided into four groups:

F1, females who identified using mobile phones or social media during class.

F2, females who did not identify using mobile phones or social media during class.

M1, males who identified using mobile phones or social media during class.

Students were then asked what they believed their upcoming overall school grades would be. I hypothesized there would be a positive correlation between students who often used non-academic social media in the classroom and having poor grades due to their often being distracted by the social media. Each letter grade (A-F) was given a corresponding numerical value (5-0) taking the average for each group. I proceeded to inquire with how many points (0-320) they entered high school and took the four group averages, F1, F2, M1 and M2.

Averages were calculated by compiling the total amount of points for a group then dividing by the number of group members. Again, I hypothesized those students who often used non-academic social media in the classroom would have entered high school with fewer points than those who did not often use it due to social media’s distraction properties. I further wished to see if their grammar school point totals were an indication of future high school results. Did poor results in grammar school predict poor grades in high school and did frequent usage of non-academic social media play any part or perhaps be a cause of the poor performance?                                        

6. Results

6.1 Student questionnaire results

6.1.1 Quality point results

Sixty-four first-year Swedish high school students, 39 females and 25 males, aged 16-18 participated in the study and were asked to estimate their present overall grade averages (A, B, C, D, E, F). Several were unsure and instead circled two letters (A/B, B/C, etc.). Grades were broken down into 11 categories and assigned a specific number of contrived quality points for each (A=5, A/B=4.5, B=4, B/C=3.5, C=3, C/D=2.5, D=2, D/E=1.5, E=1, E/F=1.5, F=0). Averages were then taken for the following groups’ estimated grades:

1. 36 females who used a mobile/social media during lessons. F1

2. 3 females who did not use a mobile/social media during lessons. F2

3. 21 males who used a mobile/social media during lessons. M1

4. 4 males who did not use a mobile/social media during lessons. M2

Average of F1 = 3.03

Average of F2 = 3.50

Average of M1 = 2.93

Average of M2 = 3.00

The groups not using a mobile or social media during lessons believed they had higher overall grades than the groups that did use a mobile or social media regardless of gender though the believed difference was higher for the females (3.50-3.03 = 0.47) than the males (3.00-2.93 = 0.07). However, it is necessary to point out the number of those who said they did not use a mobile/social media during lessons are very few.

There were mixed results for the groups with respect to the number of points with which one entered high school. Females who used mobiles in the classroom (F1) entered with more

points (271.75) than females (F2) who did not (259.17). The opposite holds true for the males

where those who used mobile phones in the classroom (M1) entered high school with fewer

the F1 and M2 groups are similar (271.75) vs. (270.83), as are groups F2 and M1 (259.17) vs.

(259.43), although they are the opposite genders carrying out the opposite actions.

6.1.2 Breakdown of student questionnaire responses

In question one, fifty-seven of sixty-four students (89.1%) said they used their mobile devices/computers for social reasons during a lesson with females using them more often (92.3%) than males (84.0%). Four male students (16.0%) and three female students (7.7%) did not use mobiles or social media in class.

Regarding the second question, none of the students used mobile devices/computers for social reasons during an entire lesson. Four students (6.3%) responded they used their mobile devices/computers for social reasons in class most of the time. Forty-six students (71.9%) replied the used them some of the time. Six students (9.4%) indicated they never used a mobile device or computer during a lesson for social reasons and eight students (12.5%) said they did not know.

I find it interesting that one-eighth of the students, all female, “did not know” how much they used a mobile device or computer for social reasons during a lesson, especially when two of them are part of the F2 group, those females who claimed from the onset, they never used

them at all. Would it have been more accurate to circle “Never” instead of “I don’t know” such as the males from group M2 did? Not one (of four) M2 group member stated he “did not

know” while two of three F2 members responded so. Did they not remember just stating they

“never” used their mobiles or computers for social reasons in class in the previous question?

For question three, one female and one male (3.1%) always used their mobile devices/computer other than for schoolwork during a lesson. Nine students (14.1%) stated they often used them. Forty-eight students (75%) claim they used a mobile device/computer other than for schoolwork while only three students (4.7%) said they never used them. Two students (3.1%) did not know.

I am intrigued by those members of the F2 and M2 groups who answer anything other than

never do so. I wonder what they meant by “other than for schoolwork” if it was not a social forum.

In the fourth question, over 78% of the students (50/64) claim to text or chat during at least some lessons with far more females (11) than males (1) stating they text or chat during

“most” lessons. One F2 member says she texts during “some” lessons while another F2

member doesn’t know. Once more, I fail to understand their logic if they indicated they

“never” use their mobile devices/computer for social reasons during class in the first place.

With question five, Snapchat was the most popular form of social media for the students as 85.9% stated they used it during their lessons. Thirty-four of thirty-six females (94.4%) use

Snapchat during their lessons. Instagram was used by 62.5% of the students and Facebook by

57.8%. Over half of those stating they never use their mobiles or computers for social reasons during lessons circled Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat or Other as used social forum mediums used. This means they either did not understand the question or were erroneous in answering at the beginning of the questionnaire.

Question six shows roughly half the students (28/57) who use social media during their lessons were told by their teachers to stop using it. This would indicate that the half who were not spoken to either were not caught or their teachers did not think to say anything. I would like to find out why certain teachers may not have said anything. Were they afraid of confrontation? Did they not want to interrupt the class? Did they not think it was worth the effort?

In question seven, almost 83% of the students, and every F2 and M2 member, state their

teachers seem bothered by students using mobile devices/computers for social media purposes during lessons.

With regards to the eighth question, a higher percentage of females (41.0%) than males (32.0%) believed their usage of social media during lessons affected their performances in a particular subject. One M2 member thought he was affected while one F2 did not know,

For question nine, twelve students (19%) believed their social media use during lessons affected all their subjects. Nine students (14%), 7:2 female, thought math was most affected.

Roughly forty percent (26/64) of the students did not write an answer, which makes me speculate they did not want to admit their social media usage during lessons was actually a problem for them.

I should have indicated that the effect was negative and the question would have been more accurate had it read: “Do you believe your usage of social media during lessons negatively

affects your performance in a particular subject?”

In the tenth question, half the students believed their social media usage during class affected them either a little or very much. One-fifth did not think social media usage affected them while one-fourth did not know.

Coming to question eleven, nearly sixty percent of the students believed their social media usage during lessons did not affect their overall school performance with a greater percentage of males (64.0%) than females (56.4%) thinking so. Almost twenty-two percent believed their social media usage during lessons affected their general school performance and approximately nineteen percent did not know.

For question twelve, almost sixty percent of the students did not believe there should be a national ban on mobile devices/social media in the classroom. It was the exact percentage of students (59.4%), with nearly the identical breakdown as those students who did not believe their usage of social media during lessons affected their overall academic performance. This would lead me to surmise a ban would not be necessary to those who perceived they were not affected.

In question number thirteen a little over half the students (53.1%) believed each school should decide on its own policy regarding mobile/social media usage during lessons. These figures would fairly reflect the idea of the previous question with thirty-four students in favor of an individual school policy while thirty-eight were against a national policy. A higher percentage of females were undecided (30.6%) than males (19.1%).

6.2 Teacher questionnaire results

30 were male (M)

31 were female (F)

1 answered both male and female (B) 3 did not circle any gender (N)

In the first question, nearly two-thirds of the teachers did not believe in a national ban on mobile devices/social media usage during lessons. This is fairly consistent with the students’ percentage (59.4%). Males were twice as likely (8:4) to view a national ban as positive than females.

In question two, an overwhelming majority of the teachers (79%) believed each school should decide on its own policy regarding mobile devices/social media usage during lessons. I found it interesting that not one of the sixty-five teachers circled the “I don’t know” option. They were far more set in their ideas than the quarter of students who were undecided.

For the third question, roughly seventy percent of the teachers had personal policies regarding mobile devices/social media usage during lessons fairly evenly spread between the male and female groups.

There are several music teachers at school who only have private lessons. I wonder how many of them have personal policies regarding mobile phones. Would it even be necessary as I imagine it would be impossible for the student to simultaneously manipulate a phone and play an instrument.

In question four, over ninety percent of the teachers indicated they had students using mobile devices or social media during their lessons with half stating “some” and nearly one-third had

“many”.

Looking at this question again has me debating the accuracy of “some” and “many” as they are not definite quantities. What might be “some” to one teacher may be “many” to another,

especially when one takes class size into consideration. Would two of ten students using mobiles during a lesson be more distracting than four of thirty? I am curious to find out which teachers said they had no students using social media during their lessons, what subjects they taught and their class sizes to see if there are any common denominators for others teachers to use.

For question five, nearly one-third of the teachers state they are disturbed “very much” by their students’ usage of mobile devices and social media during lessons with a higher percentage of female teachers being disturbed (41.9%) than males (20.0%). Far more of the male teachers responded “not much” (60.0%) than their female counterparts (38.7%). Does this indicate a gender variable? It would be interesting to find out the class sizes of the teachers who said they were not disturbed at all. Are they those who have private lessons? The only teachers who responded “I don’t know” were male.

Question six shows nearly seventy percent of the teachers do not use mobile devices or social media during their own classes. This is the exact figure of teachers responding negatively in question 3 “Do you have your own personal policy regarding mobile

devices/social media usage during lessons”. Is there any connection? Almost thirty percent

admitted to using their mobiles during their lessons but I suspect this number is higher as I have seen, on more than several occasions, some of those who stated “No” actually using their mobiles in class.

7. Analysis

   Nearly 90% of the students answered they used their mobile devices/computers for social reasons during a lesson. I thought this number would have been even higher. The F1 group

believed they had an overall grade average of a “C” (3.00) compared to the F2 group who

thought their overall grade averages were one level higher “C/B” (3.50). There was no significant difference between the M1 and M2 groups (2.93 vs. 3.00). F1 entered high school

with more points than F2 (271.75 vs. 259.17) whereas the opposite holds true for the male

groups (M1 = 259.43 vs. M2 = 270.83). Females (F1 + F2) entered with an average of 3.8%

more points than males (M1 + M2), (270.78 vs. 260.85).

Seven students stated they never use their mobile phones in class yet answered certain questions as if they in fact did. One possibility is they were thinking hypothetically how it could affect them or they actually do use them.

Overall, more females used mobiles or social media in class, were often more unsure exactly how much they used them and outnumbered males (11:1) in stating they text or chat during “most” lessons. Over 80% of the students claimed their teachers seemed bothered by mobile phone/social media use in the classroom. I thought this number would have been greater. Mathematics was the subject believed most affected, especially by the females. Traditionally, mathematics is thought to be a more “male-dominated” subject. During lessons females used their mobiles more often than males. Since females also stated to be more affected in mathematics, a subject that is very detailed and specific in its procedures is there a positive correlation between the two statements? Would their tendency to be distracted by a mobile or a social media website be a likely contributor?

As schools are turning more and more towards technology as an educational tool I believed Mueller and Oppenheimer’s (2014) study on the learning process between students who notes by hand compared to those using laptops seemed extremely relevant. Their findings demonstrated that laptop note-takers performed worse on conceptual questions than students using longhand. Students who take notes longhand process received information and put it into their own words thus adding an additional layer of learning to the process. This may be connected to a Constructivist learning theory that learning is layered and contextual, consisting of meaning and systems of meaning based on understood language. Vygotsky

discussed how speech requires sequential processing. Each element is separately labeled and then connected in a sentence structure, making speech essentially analytical. If a student is interacting on social media and not focused on listening to classroom instruction, the student misses verbal information necessary to the learning process as these informational gaps interrupt the sequence for learning. This may be evident in Appendix 1, Table 2.9 of the questionnaire, which shows that mathematics was the single subject considered most affected by social media usage, a subject very much influenced by proper sequences and exact procedural instructions.

I had hoped to show a direct correlation between frequent social media usage in class and poor academic performance. That those students who claimed to have never or infrequently used social media during lessons would have higher scholastic achievement than those who frequently used it. There might be a pattern where students who frequently used social media in class would have entered high school with fewer points and continued to receive lower grade than those students who did not use social media as much if at all. I believed my study might somewhat mirror Beland and Murphy’s (2015) where schools, which banned mobile phones completely, saw higher test scores.

Almost 90% of my students admit to using social media during classroom instruction. This figure is similar to Kuznekoff et al.’s (2015) findings where 92% of students asked admitted to sending or receiving a text message in class at least once or twice. However both our studies’ figures may be low as Kraushaar and Novak (2010) wrote how students understated the frequency of email and instant messaging use in the classroom when self-reporting on their laptop usage. This general understatement may also be of interest with regards to the 30% of teachers reporting they used non-academic social media during lessons as the implications and consequences may be greater. The fact that this percentage may be higher could possibly affect the instruction of dozens, possibly hundreds of students in my school alone if the teacher is busy with social media and not instructing. What might that mean for our education system in general? What might that mean for other education systems throughout the globe?

I expected more teachers to want a ban on mobiles in class whether national (23.1%) or by individual school (78.5%). Thirty percent of the teachers use mobiles in class, which is greater than envisaged, though I did not ask them how often they used them, as I did the

students. I wondered if my school had any official documentation or protocol or official policy regarding mobile phone/social media usage in the classroom. Also what rights did a teacher have if a student was using a mobile phone or computer for social purposes rather than academic ones? I was told our school does not have an official policy and it is up to the individual teacher to determine the rules for the class.

Over 30% of the teachers surveyed stated they were disturbed very much by student social media usage. Unfortunately, I did not pose the same question to the students, whether they felt distracted by others’ social media usage as researched by Kuznekoff et al. (2015) who found that multitasking students distracted those seated around the multitasker. Mobile phones may be distracting to the user as well as the instructor and anyone in proximity to the user. True learning may be impeded in several ways either by not allowing others to concentrate or not giving the user itself a chance to take in information.

8. Discussion

I wished to test the hypothesis that high school student mobile phone and social media usage during classroom instruction would positively correlate with a lower overall grade average and number of points with which a student entered secondary school.

Student groups who did not use a mobile or social media during lessons believed they had higher overall grades than groups who used a mobile or social media regardless of gender, while the believed difference was higher for females than males. Further data analysis showed mixed results with respect to my initial hypothesis. Females who used a mobile/social media during lessons entered high school with an average of 4.8% more points than those who did not, while the opposite was true for the male groups. Males who stated they used a mobile or social media during lessons entered high school with an average of 4.4% fewer points than males who did not use such media.

To improve the questionnaires, I could have had more students answer or at least have a broader range of students, from all three years, comparing them. This would have helped for the question referring to their overall grade averages, as the older students would have already received grades for at least their first year of school. My first-year students had to estimate and therefore may not be as accurate. I could have also asked questions with regards to bullying and as it is a topic in the discussion.

Students using social media in the class sometimes use it for cyber bullying, a cruel form of distraction, occasionally leading to confrontational and/or criminal situations resulting in new laws and legal ramifications in an attempt to provide a positive learning atmosphere. This is also shown in Weale’s (2015) review stating how British teacher and behavior expert Tom Bennet comments on how students “misuse tablets to surf the net” and “hurl insults at each other.” Plagued by such behavior, my colleagues have debated in the teachers lounge whether or not cyber bullying would decrease if mobile phones were collected at the start of lessons. Many teachers thought it would decrease, but students with whom I talked said it would not make a difference. Bullies would simply find another outlet through which they could unleash their hurtful messages or wait until class was over to send their texts. I asked the person responsible for IT at our school if it were possible to completely block access to social media sites to help students focus on lessons. He said it was possible, and, frankly, very easy to do.

However, as long as the school has a functioning Wi-Fi network it would be just as easy for a student to find another way to access a social media website and therefore denying admittance becomes a Sisyphean task.

As for the questionnaires, I was the only one formulating and calculating the statistics so I feel confident all the percentages match the student and teacher answers. At the same time, being a sole person did not grant me the opportunity to run different ideas by another, which may have helped improve the questions, response interpretation and response tabulation.

Many students admit they engage in social media during class instruction although only a small number believes it to be an actual problem. Teachers are cognizant of their unfocused students yet may not confront a pupil to rectify the situation for a myriad of reasons. The implications of this lack of attention to schoolwork are enormous as schools (and later in the workforce) increase their dependence on digital tools. The mere existence of these tools will not do anything unless there is a strategy for them (Fors, 2015). This particular situation is rapidly becoming more and more relevant to our education system and needs to be further examined so widespread access to information and connections to others can be viewed as a benefit all parties involved rather than a distraction.

Using certain Constructivist theories, learning, whether tacit or explicit, is formulated or understood when informational codes are complete and a learner must eventually take over the corrective function. One key concept is that a student should have a predisposition to learn as details are better retained when placed within the contest of an ordered and structured pattern. Information must be recognizable to the student’s experience. Sequencing must be effective. Without the sequence the code is incomplete, material is lacking and learning is thus hindered. This may be impossible if the learner has not been paying attention or lacking focus when receiving the information provided. If a student is engaged in social media during instruction, the student will not be paying attention. Thus, information will be missed throwing off any order and structure in the code sequence, which may affect learning and later reproduction of that information on a test or essay possibly resulting in poor academic results and final grades.

Digital learning will only become more widespread as schools increase their computer usage and dependency. National exams in Sweden have begun being written on computers and all

exams are to be computer based by 2022. Youths today are more technologically savvy than youths of the past, now with access to more information at a greater speed. Yet, how do we know if a student is learning and if there has been an effective conduction of knowledge from instructor to pupil? The constant thirst for improved teaching methods making instruction more attainable and efficient is partially quenched through the marvel of modern technology. Computers are popular conduits of information but no longer the only devices able to convey learning material as students also use mobile phones to look up and download material needed to complete their assignments. Although such immediate access may be positive, there is the trend of thought where the possibility of continual contact with this information or other people distracts from learning.

With regards to the purpose of my study, I attempted to show how there was a positive correlation between non-academic usage of mobile phones/social media during lessons and poor scholastic achievement. My results proved to be mixed not showing any direct correlation. The research did reveal that a high majority of the students and substantial amount of the teachers surveyed readily admit to using such material during instruction. I hope this may lead to others possibly inquiring into how efficient modern learning might be. Further research may take up the question “Are the students really learning?” or “Are the teachers really teaching” if so many students and teachers seem to be “off-task” so often. Will this hamper any student-teacher relationship possibly affecting the learning atmosphere? This situation will become even more germane as technology is used in education systems on a global scale.

However, even if mobiles and computers are taken away to improve focus what’s to prevent a student from simply staring out the window?

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