– content contributed by TA consultant Saif Siddique, PhD candidate Material Science and Engineering, Cornell University
Attention…
“… is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence.” -William James, 1890
William James, Psychologist and Philosopher. Photo licensed under CC BY-NC-ND
As we continue to identity the opportunities in this age of immediate access to digital information through – primarily – cellphones, it is necessary to keep in mind the key challenges these devices continue to pose to attention and learning in our higher education classrooms.
This post, is the first in a series of topics and strategies researched and developed by our Engineering Learning Initiative TA Consultants and revisits the real challenge of keeping student’s attention focused on learning and some of the solutions educators can use.
Understanding Cognitive Load
Cognitive load refers to the amount of information that our brains can process at a given time. This ‘load’ happens because our working memory is limited, and can only hold several ‘bits’ of information at a time. As we interact with the information in meaningful ways, it can be consolidated into long-term memory (as ‘schemas’). Increasing cognitive load is a primary way in which multitasking can lower productivity and academic performance.
Consider the following situations in which more than one task is attempted at the same time.
As you read each one, decide whether you think they represent ‘high cognitive load’ or ‘low cognitive load’:
Watching two movies simultaneously
Walking and talking on phone
Writing an essay and listening to a podcast
Driving a familiar route while listening to audiobook
Work a math problem while browsing Instagram
Scenario 2 and scenario 4 may jump out to you as the two task combinations that use sufficiently different cognitive processing pathways such that they represent situations with ‘low cognitive load’.
Unfortunately, in our classrooms, situations more similar to 3 and 5 might be more common while we are expecting students to be receptive to what we are sharing. An analog to scenario 3, ‘writing an essay and listening to a podcast’ in our classrooms might be ‘writing a text to a friend and listening to a lecture’.
Cellphones in the Classroom
In a complex study to better understand the interplay among cell phones, distraction, and timing of the distraction in the higher education lecture, Mendoza et al 2018 concluded that having cell phones, being distracted by them, and the time-frame within the lecture, all had potential to negatively influence quiz grades. Cohen’s d, the third column in the table, is an estimate of effect size related to the comparison between students retaining their cellphone and those who did not retain it during a 20 minute recorded lecture that was the focus of the experiment. Cohen’s d of 0.2 is considered a small effect, 0.5, a medium effect, and 0.8 a large effect size. This research also corroborates earlier research that shows, regardless of cellphones, attention in a lecture setting wanes within 10 to 15 minutes.
Table 1 from the Mendoza et al (2018) paper (pg. 56). This is a direct replica from the paper, but is missing the final column in which the overall mean and standard deviations for quiz scores for each quarter of the lecture are listed.
A 2023 study by Skowronek (et al.) similarly exploring the power of cellphone distraction on students in a classroom, showed that the simple fact of having a cellphone, without using it, could cause significant distraction. Notification sounds and vibrations, even when we don’t respond to them, can create very real distractions.
Solutions: Share research outcomes, Create Engagement, and Build ‘buy-in’
Cellphones are not going away. Indeed they are becoming more and more integrated into the moment-to-moment fabric of our everyday lives. Bradley and Howard, (2023) reported that the average use of cellphones in the undergraduate student population they studied (n=187) approached 7 hours per day, with 113 ‘pick ups’. Undoubtedly, some of these occurred during class and study time.
In higher education, where education is a choice made by individuals who are legally adults, institutional policies about cellphone use do not exist, except for language requesting students respect of the classroom and others around them. In any case, some research suggests that restrictive cellphone policies are ineffective in higher education classrooms. While research on intervention success is rare, there are viable approaches that may substantially help reduce the use and distractions caused by cellphones in learning environments.
Some of the same strategies that motivate student learning and improve learning outcomes in general likely can reduce the use of cellphones.
Share statistics and data from studies on the effect of cellphone use on grades.
There are plenty of studies (some used in this post) with figures and tables you can share. Do this at the start of the course, and revisit! Some students will be swayed by data.
Invite students to collect their own personal data and become aware of their behaviors so that they can set personal policies to improve their learning.
Invite the class to share and agree on course ground-rules (based on the research shared) that will minimize cellphone distractions for individuals and their neighbors as part of a larger set of respectful classroom communication choices.
Creating ‘buy-in’ has a greater chance of succeeding than do restrictive policies developed in the absence of student input.
Part of class structure may include a mid-class 5 minute ‘cellphone break’ that can be offered depending on if students as a whole respect the groups decisions.
Create engagement and participation in your classroom. When students come to a class where participation is expected and they begin to value and enjoy those learning experiences, they will have less time to ‘tune out’ from a traditional lecture.
As attention in a lecture wanes after about 10 minutes, structure lectures so that there is an activity with associated low stakes expectations every 10 minutes. These can include:
think/pair/share,
collaborative problem solving,
metacognitive discussion prompts
written reflection (we can use online discussion boards, or poll questions, but this does open up option for tangent cellphone use!)
Struggling with the challenges of attention in the digital age while choosing to use cellphones and applications for the benefit of learning are inseparable topics that inevitably will evolve in complexity as our technology does. McCoy, (2016) surveyed 675 students, and found that students were using devices in class primarily “to stay connected (63%), fight boredom (63%), and for entertainment (47%)” . As far as we can infer these data more generally, the suggested solutions of creating engagement and participation in class, may help students feel less bored and stay connect right inside the classroom.
Evidence-supported, student-centered teaching not only will improve learning outcomes by allowing students to process information into knowledge (schema), but also by their potential to keep students off their phones as they work with the material and with each other!
In a complex study to better understand the interplay among cell phones, distraction, and timing of the distraction in the higher education lecture, Mendoza et al 2018 concluded that having cell phones, being distracted by them, and the time-frame within the lecture, all had potential to negatively influence quiz grades. Cohen’s d, the third column in the table, is an estimate of effect size related to the comparison between students retaining their cellphone and those who did not retain it during a 20 minute recorded lecture that was the focus of the experiment. Cohen’s d of 0.2 is considered a small effect, 0.5, a medium effect, and 0.8 a large effect size. This research also corroborates earlier research that shows, regardless of cellphones, attention in a lecture setting wanes within 10 to 15 minutes.
Struggling with the challenges of attention in the digital age while choosing to use cellphones and applications for the benefit of learning are inseparable topics that inevitably will evolve in complexity as our technology does. McCoy, (2016) surveyed 675 students, and found that students were using devices in class primarily “to stay connected (63%), fight boredom (63%), and for entertainment (47%)” . As far as we can infer these data more generally, the suggested solutions of creating engagement and participation in class, may help students feel less bored and stay connect right inside the classroom.