Elsevier

Computers & Education

Volume 106, March 2017, Pages 13-25
Computers & Education

Three different roles, five different aspects: Differences and similarities in viewing school mobile phone policies among teachers, parents, and students

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2016.11.007Get rights and content

Highlights

  • 1226 K-12 school teachers, parents, and students were surveyed.

  • Students generally take mobile phone as learning support for school-related work.

  • Teachers generally view students' mobile phone use as a learning disruption.

  • The three groups all agree with banning mobile phone use during classes and exams.

  • Teachers and Parents are less supportive of using mobile phones in K-12 schools.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore perceived differences in mobile phone policies among three different groups: teachers, parents, and students, from five different aspects: policy impact, decision, policy implementation, policy assessment, and policy improvement. This study surveyed 1226 elementary, middle and high school teachers, parents, and students in China with a 25-items questionnaire. Significant differences in teachers', parents', and students’ responses were found in (1) what motivated students to use mobile phones, (2) whether mobile phone use should be banned, (3) whether mobile phone policies were effective, and (4) how to improve the policies. However, the teachers, parents, and students shared similar views that (1) students should not be allowed to use mobile phones during classes and exams, (2) the current mobile phone policies had a rather low level of effectiveness, and (3) the mobile phone policies should be implemented better. Significance and implications of the findings are discussed.

Introduction

Mobile phones have become an integral part of daily life for young people, with almost each teenager using one in their daily lives (Lin et al., 2013, Yan et al., 2013). The wide usage of mobile phones among students at different levels of education has both its pros and cons, just like the two sides of a coin. On one hand, mobile phones have positively influenced students’ learning, engagement, motivation, and productivity (Roblyer & Doering, 2010). The increasing ubiquity and instructional features of these devices help students learn anywhere, at any time, and with anyone (Wu et al., 2012, Yan et al., 2013). In addition, studies suggest that the usage of mobile phones at school can substantially enhance social relationships and social interactions with peers (Duran, Kelly, & Rotaru, 2011), the ability to seek information (Lin et al., 2013), and safety/security (Ling, 2004, Ling and Yttri, 1999, Ling and Yttri, 2002). On the other hand, there are a number of downsides to using mobile phones at school as recognized in literature, including disruptions to the study environment (Campbell, 2006, End et al., 2010, Gao et al., 2014), effect on academic achievement (End et al., 2010, Fox et al., 2009), disruption to daily routine (Gao et al, 2014), access to inappropriate content on the Internet (Thomas et al., 2016, Gao et al., 2014), and the ability to cheat on tests by using methods, such as surfing the Internet, or accessing previously stored information (Campbell, 2006, Common Sense Media, 2009; Hurst, 2004, McAfee, 2012, National School Safety and Security Services, 2005, St. Gerard, 2006).

There is a close relationship between participant characteristics and perceptions about mobile phone use in school (Campbell, 2006). Researchers (Campbell, 2006, O'Bannon and Thomas, 2014) focus on age differences and suggest that younger participants exhibit a more tolerant attitude towards mobile phone use in comparison with older ones. However, the three major players associated with mobile phone usage in schools– teachers, parents, and students – may have divergent perceptions regarding the issue. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore the extent to which the teacher/parent/student status affects the perceptions on five different aspects of school mobile phone policies.

Given the observed pros and cons of student mobile phone use and the different perspectives of teachers, parents, and students, the question of how to develop appropriate policies at school that maximize the positive impact and minimize the negative impact is getting more and more complicated. In previous work, researchers and educators hold greatly different opinions on banning or allowing mobile phone use in schools.

Various schools and teachers ban the use of mobile phone by students in schools, viewing them as a source of substantial disruption (Lenhart, 2012). They are concerned that loosely controlled mobile phone use may hinder students’ performance at school (Olufadi, 2015a, Olufadi, 2015b). For example, Gao et al. (2014) report that 83.78% of elementary schools, 75.56% of middle schools, and 63.46% of high schools in China regulate mobile phone use. Similarly, 69% of the high schools in the United States have adopted policies that ban teenagers from using mobile phones in the classroom (Common Sense Media, 2009) and 112 high school principals in 44 States reported that 84% of schools have a written policy (Obringer & Coffey, 2007).

However, fairly recent studies (Johnson et al., 2012, Thomas et al., 2013) have reported that some schools and teachers have started to consider the instructional benefits of mobile phones and are re-evaluating their mobile phone use policies. In a particularly thoughtful and high-quality study, Thomas et al. (2013) investigated 78 K-12 teachers about their perceptions on using mobile phones for classroom instruction and found that 69% of these teachers supported the use of mobile phones in the classroom and were using them for school-related work. Bradford Networks (2013) estimated that 89% of the colleges and universities and 44% of the K-12 school districts in the United States and the United Kingdom allow students to bring their own devices to use on school networks.

Should schools continue to ban students’ mobile phone use due to it being a source of disruption or start to take advantage of mobile phones as powerful tools for learning? To answer this challenging question, it is essential to analyze the school mobile phone usage policy as a complex policy-making process involving multiple groups and multiple aspects rather than a simple and straightforward task. As shown in Fig. 1, the school mobile phone policy is built upon a complex social system that involves at least three key players – teachers as policy makers, students as policy receivers, and parents as policy mediators. It also concerns at least five interrelated policy aspects: impact, decision, implementation, assessment, and improvement. We will use this framework in the present study to analyze and demonstrate the complexity of mobile phone school policies.

Teachers, parents, and students are the three major players in formulating school mobile phone policies with each of them having different perspectives about the issue.

First, teachers, as policy makers and implementers, often view mobile phone use as a disruptive factor that has to be constrained or even prohibited in the classroom as opposed to a powerful tool for learning. Their ultimate motivation is to minimize potential distractions and negative effects of mobile phones on students' performance. For instance, a study conducted by the National Education Association showed that 85% of a sample of higher education instructors in the United States agrees that professors should ban mobile phones from being used in university classrooms (Gilroy, 2004). Campbell (2006) also estimated that, in the United States, various educational systems, especially the K-12 school system, have officially adopted policies in banning on-campus mobile phone use. Moreover, the individual attitudes of teachers as well as their own styles in implementing the policies may lead to different outcomes of the existing policies. Hopke and Marsh (2011) reported that the level of strictness with which the instructors implemented the policies in the classroom had a significant influence on students’ mobile phone use and behavior in the classroom.

Second, students as policy receivers and beneficiaries have a different take regarding mobile phone policies. They usually consider mobile phones as an important tool for connecting with peers and for school learning rather than a distraction (Olufadi, 2015a, Olufadi, 2015b). Mobile phones have become the most favored communication method for the majority of American teenagers, as claimed in the report by Lenhart, Richling, and Purcell (2010). According to Johnson et al. (2012), K–12 students perceive mobile phones not only as communication and entertainment devices but also as learning tools that can be used to run a wide range of applications. Their attitudes towards the policies will make a difference in the effectiveness of the existing policies. For example, they may simply violate the policies if they do not agree with them and may use the phone at school secretly.

Third, parents often demonstrate ambivalent attitudes toward school mobile phone regulations. On one hand, parents appreciate social networking and other features of mobile phones as much as their children. Lenhart et al. (2010) pointed out that 98% of the parents of mobile phone-owning teenagers say that a major reason why their child has a phone is so they can be in touch regardless of their location. Similarly, a study that focused on adolescents aged 11–17 and their families found that both parents and adolescents believe that mobile phones are essential for keeping in touch with each other (Devitt & Roker, 2009). On the other hand, parents sometimes take on the role of supervisor to prevent children from experiencing the negative effects of mobile phones. Parents often control their child's mobile phone behavior by limiting its use, checking its contents, and using it to find the location of their child. For example, Lenhart et al. (2010) found that 46% of parents limit the number of minutes their children talk on the mobile phone, 52% of parents limit the times of day they use the mobile phone, 64% of parents look at the contents of their children's mobile phones, and 62% of parents took away their children's mobile phones as punishment.

This study aims to investigate the differences and similarities in the perception of teachers, parents, and students at K-12 schools with respect to five aspects of mobile phone policies. Three distinct features of the research design are specified below.

First, we focus on three different groups – teachers, students, and parents – in contrast to previous research (e.g., Campbell, 2006, Gao et al., 2014, Hopke and Marsh, 2011, Lenhart et al., 2010, Obringer and Coffey, 2007) that usually focus on one or two of the three key players. For example, Obringer and Coffey (2007) explored mobile phone policies from the viewpoint of 112 high school principals, Campbell (2006) examined the viewpoints of teachers and students, and Lenhart et al. (2010) examined the viewpoints of students and parents. In the context of the mobile phone policy process, teachers, as classroom supervisors or classroom masters, directly make mobile phone policy decisions and regulate students’ mobile phone use in daily life. Parents, as supervisors, often monitor their children so they use mobile phones in a proper way. Students are the users of mobile phones. Thus, it will be useful to compare their perspectives and positions in the different roles they play in the mobile phone policy process. In addition, it would be useful to compare these three groups within one study rather than in different studies. This will help us clearly understand the differences and similarities between participants from similar backgrounds in the same school.

Second, we study various aspects of mobile phone policies rather than concentrating on a single dimension. The relatively extensive literature usually focuses on the benefits and barriers to students’ mobile phone usage and whether mobile phone use should be banned or allowed at schools (e.g., Campbell, 2006, Hopke and Marsh, 2011, Lenhart et al., 2010, Obringer and Coffey, 2007, Olufadi, 2015a, Olufadi, 2015b, Thomas et al., 2013). To extend the existing research, it will be important to examine multiple aspects of the mobile phone policies including policy motivation, policy improvement, policy implementation, policy assessment, and future policy improvement (Blakemore, 1998, Gao et al., 2014, Jenkins, 1978, Shadish et al., 1991, Weiss, 1972).

Third, we highlight differences in perceptions of school mobile phone policies among teachers, parents, and students rather than directly studying the mobile phone policies. This is because the relationship between mobile phone policy decision and policy implementation is not a simple stimulus-response association, as indicated by classical behaviorism theory (See the first model in Fig. 2). Cognitive psychology theory indicates that an individual's cognitive process is a mediator variable between policy decision (stimulus) and policy implementation (response) (See the second model in Fig. 2). In other words, different perceptions among the three major groups on mobile phone policies may affect the effectiveness of existing policies. Hence, they must be examined further so that we can understand the real-life complexity of how mobile phone policies have been framed and implemented and how to improve them.

Thus, the present study focuses on the differences and similarities in viewing school mobile phone policies among three different roles– teachers, parents and students – and five different aspects, namely, (1) positive and negative impacts of mobile phone use, (2) mobile phone policy decisions, (3) mobile phone policy implementation, (4) mobile phone policy assessment, and (5) mobile phone policy improvement. We aim to explore the relationship between these participant characteristics and perceptions on mobile phone use and policies at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.

Section snippets

Participants

The study was conducted using 1226 teachers, parents, and students across 17 elementary schools, 16 middle schools, and 13 high schools in the Pearl River Delta Economic Zone of China. Most students in this region own mobile phones. A multistage sampling technique was used to select the participants. The 1226 participants consist of 356 teachers (118 in elementary schools, 136 in middle schools, 102 in high schools) and 435 students and their parents (157 in elementary schools, 165 in middle

Differences in viewing impacts of mobile phone use among teachers, parents, and students

Table 2 provides a summary of the results corresponding to the first research question: Are there any differences in the perception about the positive and negative impacts of mobile phone use among teachers, parents, and students? Specifically, we highlight three elementary results presented in Table 2.

First, students from all school levels generally reported that mobile phone use could “help their learning” and “assist in referring” (mean > 3.5), compared with teachers (mean < 3.0), and

Positive and negative impacts of mobile phone use

This study reveals that significant group differences exist for both the positive and negative impacts of mobile phone use. Students generally agree on the useful features of mobile phones for school-related work and their perceptions of mobile phone use are more positive than teachers and parents. They generally report that mobile phone use could “help their learning” and “assist in referring.” This finding supports the research by Baker, Lusk, and Neuhauser (2012), which revealed that

Conclusion

This study reports the first practical evidence of differences and similarities from the perspective of mobile phone policies among teachers, parents, and students, who are closely related to the issue of school mobile phone use, with respect to five key aspects of mobile phone policies.

Among teachers, parents, and students, significant differences exist in four primary aspects, specifically, what motivated students to use mobile phones, whether mobile phone use should be banned, whether mobile

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by National Social Science Fund of Chinese (Grant No.16BSH089), and the Education Science Program of SZ (Grant No. YBZZ15007).

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