Best Practice

Mobile phones and devices in the classroom: Four factors to understand

Handheld devices Edtech
The government’s rhetoric on mobile phone bans in schools must not lead to rash decisions that might limit the impact of digital devices and technology in the classroom. Fiona Aubrey-Smith considers four factors we must understand about the use of digital devices in learning
Image: Adobe Stock

Last term, the secretary of state for education announced plans for non-statutory guidance to support headteachers to ban the use of mobile phones throughout the school day.

As reported by SecEd, this guidance is seen mostly as unnecessary and headline-chasing rather than meaningfully useful given that many schools already ban mobile phones.

However, there have been a number of counterarguments and some pushback by educators and families who have interpreted the advice as “anti-technology”.

Much of my work is immersed in academic research concerned with the uses of digital technology in schools and most of my days are spent in schools working alongside children, teachers, and leaders.

Drawing on my experience, there are three clear reasons why I think that in the current educational and national landscape mobile phones have no place in the classroom.

 

Understand smartphones vs laptops/tablets

The distinction between mobile phones and laptops or tablets is important because it demarcates a type of use for technology.

Research and presentations about technology-use in schools often overlook this and this leads to generalisations which are inaccurate and unhelpful.

Even research by large international bodies is not immune to this methodological issue. For example, UNESCO (2023) recently published a global monitoring report about technology in education and concluded: “Student use of devices beyond a moderate threshold may have a negative impact on academic performance. A meta-analysis of research on the relationship between student mobile phone use and educational outcomes covering students from pre-primary to higher education in 14 countries found a small negative effect.

“The decline is mostly linked to increased distraction and time spent on non-academic activities during learning hours. Incoming notifications or the mere proximity of a mobile device can be a distraction, resulting in students losing their attention from the task at hand.”

The argument about appropriate volume of use and avoiding the distraction of inappropriate use is a persuasive and justified conclusion, which is certainly backed by both theoretical and empirical evidence.

However, the quote cites “devices”. And yet the evidence cited to support the argument is based upon specific kinds of device (smartphones) and specific kinds of use (e.g. notifications and proximity of a mobile device).

The impact of this lack of precision is manifesting itself in media headlines and portrayals which then influence or at the very least put pressure on policy-makers.

For example, the Guardian (Butler & Farah, 2023) summarised that same UNESCO report thus: “Digital technology as a whole, including artificial intelligence, should always be subservient to a ‘human-centred vision’ of education, and never supplant face-to-face interaction with teachers … excessive or inappropriate student use of technology in the classroom and at home, whether smartphones, tablets or laptops, could be distracting, disruptive and result in a detrimental impact on learning.”

It is important to see how this kind of reporting collates smartphones, tablets, and laptops and to make sure it does not influence the perception and mindset of school leadership, the teaching workforce, and parents.

How we conceptualise a mobile phone and the things we use them for is different to what we think of laptops or tablet devices (Steeds et al, 2021).

The lack of precision in how non-specialists might conceptualise classroom uses of digital technology is damaging because the research shows that digital technology offers potential for positive impact on learning (e.g. LEO Academy Trust, 2023).

I work with many schools where there are embedded 1-1 laptop/tablet ecosystems resulting in clear and sustained impact on a wide range of outcomes – and all of these schools ban mobile phones.

 

Understand screentime as taxonomies of cognitive challenge

Closely linked to the imprecision when referring to digital devices, another common misconception in this space relates to the use of the word “screentime” when referring to those using any kind of device.

Parents and some staff sometimes share their concerns about children using laptops or tablets in school due to increased “screentime”.

There are two important threads to draw out of this conversation. First is the societal understanding about what happens inside classrooms, with many assuming a passive device-use model whereby teachers talk and children just listen or watch.

Second, is that some families provide their children with laptops or tablets at home for entertainment purposes (e.g. television, video games). As such, in everyday life, the term “screentime” is often associated with (a) passivity rather than proactivity, and (b) so called “engagement” rather than meaningful action or interaction (Aubrey-Smith & Twining, 2023).

It is more helpful to break the term “screentime” down into a number of more precise definitions and taxonomies of cognitive challenge might be a pragmatic way to do this. A suggested approach (see Aubrey-Smith, 2024), splits screentime into at least three categories:

  1. Passive screentime: Let’s call this “stare & move”, where our learners are just watching, scrolling, viewing, where they are engaged by some kind of novelty stimulus, click-through or where digital is used for entertainment, reward or simply occupying a child or ensuring compliant behaviour.
  2. Transactionary screentime: Let’s call this “sense & react” where our learners are seeing or hearing and then responding to that – perhaps a knowledge recall quiz, retrieval, or completing some kind of procedures and processes like a drag and drop task, or polishing a piece of work for publishing, or reading and simple comprehension type tasks.
  3. Dispositionally developmental screentime: Let’s call this “think & enact” where our learners are using metacognitive skills for evaluating, target-setting, planning, thinking critically about different ideas or synthesising concepts or findings or applying knowledge and skills to practical problems.

The nuanced detail that permeates all three of these is the visual and auditory stimulus that can be embedded in digital use.

Twani (2021) refers to engaging on-screen visual stimulus, audio or visual prompts which stimulate user action, and auto-responding reactive events which provide users with the endorphin release that creates consequent motivation to further engage. These create the “engagement” factor that is often associated with “screentime” (Sarma & Yoquinto, 2020).

It is important to recognise that this engagement exists regardless of cognitive challenge. In other words, a low-stakes screen task (e.g. passive watching of a slideshow on a digital board) can engage a learner due to the audio-visual stimulus yet still require very little cognitive engagement from that learner.

The engagement is often evidenced through the learner focusing solely on the task which can create an attractive illusion that the task has therefore been meaningful and productive.

It is perhaps pertinent to highlight research which found less brain activity in those watching television than those who are sleeping (Takeuchi et al, 2013; Walker, 1980).

This is precisely why “engagement” through screen-based tasks – in isolation – should not be used as justification for the use of any kind of digital technology in the classroom.

 

Understanding the root causes of distraction

Another common concern about device-use is that the digital device itself will become a distraction from learning. In order to understand the reality of this perception it is helpful to explore what causes a person to be distracted.

Evidence suggests that this is a combination of: novelty (of an object or stimulus), unexpectedness (of a stimulus), and lack of motivation to engage with the intended focus of attention (North, 2011).

Translated into a classroom context, if an object is on a child’s desk which is not usually available to them then they are likely to become distracted by it – their working memory is filled up exploring the new stimulus.

However, where objects are consistently on a child’s desk, then they lose that novelty stimulus and thus their working memory is not used in the same way. So the solution here is to ensure that the toolkit available to children – whatever it may include – is consistent and familiar.

Furthermore, if objects themselves cause some kind of stimulus (e.g. a gluestick rolling off the table, an alert on a device), then that stimulus again demands attention from the child’s working memory.

This has a direct impact on their cognitive load and ability to remain “on task” which in turn has a direct relationship with the quality and quantity of learning and their successful task outcomes (Kannass et al, 2010).

The solution is to be aware of how stimulus can be utilised, or reduced, depending upon what we want children’s attention to be focused on.

Stimulus can act as a positive provocation as well as a distraction – and this can be managed to a certain extent by how the classroom teacher embraces this understanding.

Excellent teachers pro-actively plan for any kind of stimulus in order to maintain attention, pace or focus at key points in learning.

As one child I was working with recently explained: “If the lesson was boring then I’d probably be distracted yes. It was like that at my old school (laughs). But it’s different here. When we’re learning about something here my teacher likes us all asking questions and I’m allowed to find out things if they don’t know the answer and we get to work with each other so it makes it all interesting. I like learning now.”

The more children see tasks as relevant, personal, purposeful, and stimulating, and the fewer irrelevant activities or resources there are which may disrupt flow (sustained concentration), the less likely children are to be distracted.

 

Understand your pedagogical intentions

While I am a huge advocate of pedagogically led uses of digital technology, I do not believe that any classroom should use digital tools or devices of any description without having a clear understanding about why (not just how) it benefits the learners who are experiencing or using them.

The evidence for the safe and purposeful use of mobile phones in classrooms is not (yet?) persuasive – often linked to ideas about what “might” be possible or what “could” be achieved rather than at-scale, sustainable, evidence of impact.

Impact on learners and learning happens when we focus on learners and learning.

  • Dr Fiona Aubrey-Smith supports schools and trusts with professional learning, education research and strategic planning. She is the founder of One Life Learning, an associate lecturer at the Open University, a founding fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching, and sits on the board of a number of multi-academy and charitable trusts. Follow her on X (Twitter) @FionaAS. Find her previous articles and podcast/webinar appearances via www.sec-ed.co.uk/authors/dr-fiona-aubrey-smith

 

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