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ABSTRACT
This paper examines undergraduate student use of laptop computers during a lecture-style class that includes substantial problem-solving activities and graphic-based content. The study includes both a self-reported use component collected from student surveys as well as a monitored use component collected via activity monitoring "spyware" installed on student laptops. We categorize multitasking activities into productive (course-related) versus distractive (non course-related) tasks. Quantifiable measures of software multitasking behavior are introduced to measure the frequency of student multitasking, the duration of student multitasking, and the extent to which students engage in distractive versus productive tasks.
We find that students engage in substantial multitasking behavior with their laptops and have non course-related software applications open and active about 42% of the time. There is a statistically significant inverse relationship between the ratio of distractive versus productive multitasking behavior during lectures and academic performance. We also observe that students under state the frequency of email and instant messaging (IM) use in the classroom when self-reporting on their laptop usage.
Keywords: Multitasking, Distraction, Lecture, Laptop, Classroom, Cognitive, Teaching, Learning
1. INTRODUCTION
Laptop computers are widely used in many college classrooms today (Weaver and Nilson, 2005); however, there is an ongoing debate regarding the purpose and value of laptop initiative programs that encourage or even require students to purchase laptops, and the role of laptops in classrooms. Although the use of laptops in the classroom has the potential to motivate and contribute to student learning (Efaw, Hampton, Martinez, Smith, 2004; Trimmel and Bachmann, 2004), they also have the potential to negatively impact student attention, motivation, student-teacher interactions, and academic achievement (Young, 2006; Meierdiercks, 2005).
Previous research has shown that students who bring laptops to class often engage in electronic multitasking that involves switching their cognitive focus back and forth between tasks that are directly related to the lecture material and tasks that are not directly related to the lecture material (Fried, 2008; Hembrooke and Gay, 2003; Grace-Martin and Gay, 2001). Although many students may believe they can switch back and forth between different tasks with no serious consequences to their academic performance, multitasking has been shown to dramaticaUy increase the number of memory errors and the processing time required to "learn" topics that involve a significant cognitive load (Rubenstein,...