Learning despite interruptions

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Jon Bustillo

Although school is a social construction and teaching-learning is a collective act, learning is an individual mental activity. No one can learn for another person; it is always each person who incorporates the new learning. In this intellectual activity, the context has a direct impact on the final result. Thus, when the number of elements that interfere with the ability to concentrate increases, performance in the study tends to be worse. This situation it may surely sound familiar to us in contexts where there is an excess of stimuli that are pushing to capture our attention.

Those of us who have been in front of students for years know that, for the good development of the teaching-learning process, it is vital that both students and teachers maintain concentration on what is being discussed in the classroom. When this is lost, the previous line of argument is no longer valid and a new one must be woven to try to recover the previous position (Mercimek et al., 2020; van der Schuur et al., 2015). Keeping students focused without losing the thread of the discussion is a kind of teaching art that favors learning and opens the door to understanding increasingly complex issues. But what happens when, within the context of the classroom, students have devices that are permanently stealing their attention? The ability to learn is greatly affected, and with it, the possibility of understanding increasingly complex issues, which, in addition to prior knowledge, require a greater dose of concentration.

Mobile devices, despite the educational benefits that some people defend, in most cases represent a continuous interference in the classroom (Altamura et al., 2022). Concentrating on any activity that requires a good dose of continued attention when we have a device in our pocket that does not stop vibrating (if not ringing), is an act that requires a self-control level that is too great for most people (James, 2021). Furthermore, if after these endless warnings we find information that does not require much concentration to understand, the reward is double and instantaneous. In this sense, taking advantage of the development of a final degree project, a student proposed measuring in her class what these interruptions were like, how many people were affected and to what extent (Imaz & Bustillo, 2023).

For this study, the existence of an instant messaging group in which all fourth-year students of the degree in Primary Education participated was used. In it, a new telephone number was included that the students did not have identified, from where the sending of irrelevant messages with academic activity was programmed in different time contexts, specifically first thing in the morning (before going to college), during class time and at the end of the day. Likewise, similar messages were sent from a telephone number known to the members. In this case, the time taken by the students to appear with the double check offered by the messaging service was analysed, allowing us to calculate how much time had elapsed from sending the message until it was read.

The results showed that there were no relevant differences between the response times when the students were outside or in class, indicating that the context does not differentiate. It was also observed that the response times were lower when the messages were sent from an unknown phone. This indicates that, although the messages did not appear as read, they had been previously evaluated based on the origin, showing that, although it was not recorded, they had already paid attention to it. Finally, only 33% of the students did not record having read the messages during school hours, on the contrary, more than 30% had already read them in the next 3 minutes after being sent.

Fte.: (Imaz & Bustillo, 2023)

Beyond the methodological limitations that could be pointed out, and of which we are aware, there is no doubt that our students are being “warned” continuously from their mobile device. In this small experiment, only a small interaction in a single messaging group has been analyzed. The reality is that our students are simultaneously participating in many instant messaging groups, from where they continually receive numerous notifications that require their attention and does not allow them to maintain a thread that requires too much concentration. As Mercimek et al., (2020) show us, the most advanced students are the only ones who would not be greatly harmed by these interruptions in the classroom; for them, this would be like a small review that does not require their full attention. On the contrary, the students who most need the acquisition of that knowledge that allows them to continue advancing in their training and in the understanding of whatever is being held in the classroom, turn out to be the most harmed and required to make a greater effort of self-control for which, in most cases, they are not prepared.

I am not in favour of bans, this is a weapon that can be used for causes that I would hardly agree with. But I do believe that intervention should be made to ensure that classrooms are learning contexts in order to guaraantee a suitable space in accordance wuith the intellectual effort that is required to be made in. Ultimately, as Hari (2023) would say, we should regain control over our attention by creating spaces with controlled levels of distraction.

 References:

Altamura, L., Salmerón, L., & Kammerer, Y. (2022). Instant messaging multitasking while reading: A pilot eye-tracking study. 2022 Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications, 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1145/3517031.3529237

Hari, J. (2023). El valor de la atención: Por qué nos la robaron y cómo recuperarla. Planeta.

Imaz, O., & Bustillo, J. (2023). Mugikorra eta klasean arreta mantentzeko zailtasunak. IKASTORRATZA.e-journal on Didactics, 26-41. https://doi.org/10.37261/30_alea/2

James, W. (2021). Clics contra la humanidad: Libertad y resistencia en la era de la distracción tecnológica. Gatopardo.

Mercimek, B., Akbulut, Y., Dönmez, O., & Sak, U. (2020). Multitasking impairs learning from multimedia across gifted and non-gifted students. Educational Technology Research and Development, 68(3), 995-1016. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-019-09717-9

van der Schuur, W. A., Baumgartner, S. E., Sumter, S. R., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2015). The consequences of media multitasking for youth: A review. Computers in Human Behavior, 53, 204-215. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.06.035

Source: educational EVIDENCE

Rights: Creative Commons