Study Shows College Students Who Text Not Paying Attention to Lectures

According to Leanne Smith, New study shows college students who text during class not paying attention to lectures. I don't think anyone disputes this fact. What I – and like-minded faculty – aim to do is to engage these students, so they have no interest in texting in class or even better involve their mobile devices (cell phones, smart phones, tablets, etc) in the learning process.

Don't blame technology for students' lack of interest ing class – without a cell phone, these same students would be doodling on a notepad and daydreaming.

A university professor in Pennsylvania has completed a study and written a soon-to-be-published paper on the effects of text messaging by college students during class.
A new study says texting in class decreases students' ability to pay attention.
The results?
Students who send and receive texts during class have a hard time paying attention to lectures and risk not learning as much as they would if they weren’t texting and were paying attention.
Yes, this is a real study highlighted in a press release from Washington, D.C.’s National Communication Association, which will publish the paper in its July print issue of its journal Communication Education.
The study’s principal author is Fang-Yi Flora Wei, assistant professor of broadcast communications at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford. In the release, she says, “Now we see that in-class texting partially interferes with a student’s ability to pay attention, which prior studies show is necessary for effective cognitive learning.”

Photo by Bradley Wind - http://flic.kr/p/bv5Dk