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Citation: Berger, P. (2016). What is it like to teach digital natives?
University instructors’attitudes toward students’ media use in class. In F. Liénard and S.
Zlitni (Eds.), Médias Numériques et Communication Électronique (pp. 263-273). Le
Havre: Université du Havre.
WHAT IS IT LIKE TO TEACH DIGITAL NATIVES?
UNIVERSITY INSTRUCTORS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD
STUDENTS’ MEDIA USE IN CLASS
Priscila Berger
Technische Universität Ilmenau, Germany
This study aimed to explore university instructors’ perspective concerning
students’ media use behavior in class. Taking the three-component view of
attitudes (Rosenberg & Hovland, 1960), university instructors’ attitudes were
investigated in implicit (cognitive + affective) and behavioral terms. A mixed
methods strategy was adopted, in which data was gathered in the qualitative
phase via interviews, thus informing the survey that was used as method of data
collection in the quantitative phase. Findings illustrate aspects of the learning
environment that instructors consider being positively and negatively impacted
by students’ media use behavior, showing that most instructors have favorable
implicit and behavioral attitudes towards it. Regression analysis reveals that
teachers’ favorable behavioral attitudes were positively influenced by the
perceptions that media use in class has positive impacts for both instructors and
students, whilst teachers’ resistant behaviors were influenced only by the
perception that students’ media use in class impacts negatively the instructor’s
job.
Keywords: university instructors, portable media devices, students’ media use in
class, three-component view of attitudes.
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Introduction
A lot has been said about how digital media are able to enhance education, and,
as consequence, about the urgency that teachers should develop skills and
innovate teaching methods and pedagogy. At the same time, it has been
suggested that technology adoption in the educational environment depends
fundamentally on the teacher (Perrota, 2015), what leads to the importance of
analyzing the attitudes that teachers have towards digital media in order to
ensure that the expected innovations in education will come.
Teachers’ attitudes regarding digital technology in education can be verified in a
variety of contexts, for instance, studies have investigated the attitudes of
teachers concerning the adoption of technology in teaching practices in different
levels of education (e.g. Johson, 2012; Petko, 2012; Avidov-Ungar & MagenNagar, 2014). Considering that mobile technology has been developing and
becoming more and more popular and adopted by users, contributing to growing
intense media use and media multitasking behaviors, especially among youth
(Foher, 2006), also in university classrooms (Lauricella & Kay, 2010; Hastall et
al, 2012; Burak, 2012), this study focuses on the university environment, to
where students frequently bring their own media devices and use them during
classes.
When it comes to effects of the use of digital devices and media multitasking
behavior in university classrooms, studies focus primarily on their impact on
learning, exploring the perspective of the student (e.g. Lauricella & Kay, 2010;
Junco, 2012; Sana et al, 2013). Definitely it is highly relevant to understand how
students learn in order to achieve more efficient education environments;
nevertheless, as education environments also consist of teaching, and teachers
have a crucial role in the organization of the learning environment, it is worthy
verifying how this side of the process perceives the impacts caused by media use
behaviors.
Media use and its effects in learning environments
Studies that investigate media use from students’ perspective evidence that
media multitasking in learning produce impairment of attention (Lee, Lin &
Robertson, 2012; Fried, 2008; Sana et al, 2013), not only to the users
themselves, but also to peers in sight of classmates using media devices in class
(Sana et al, 2013), besides impairment of memory (Hembrooke & Gay, 2003;
Lauricella & Kay, 2010), and decrease of grades (Junco, 2012a; Junco, 2012b;
Junco & Cotten, 2012, Burak, 2012).
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Teachers’ perspective in relation to media use in class is commonly investigated
in terms of adoption of digital media technology for pedagogical purposes (e.g.
Johson, 2012; Petko, 2012; Avidov-Ungar & Magen-Nagar, 2014), however few
studies take the perspective of teachers concerning students’ media use. One of
these few cases is Yamamoto (2007), who points out negative aspects he
observed in his own experience as lecturer concerning the use of laptops by
students in class. He mentions that the presence of laptops in class promoted
poor note taking skills, created a physical and mental barrier between instructors
and students in class, and harmed the control of the teacher over the classroom.
Led to those negative perceptions, Yamamoto adopted a laptop ban policy in his
classes, and affirmed that in consequence students engaged better in the
activities. Besides this, he suggests ways to handle media use by students during
lessons, in case a complete ban of devices does not apply, for example, disabling
Wi-Fi signal in the classroom, moving around the class during lecture time, and
posing rules for laptop use, for instance strictly for note taking.
More positive views on students’ media use in class often suggest that the
teacher must embrace media devices when planning activities in class. By
comparing a variety of projects that inserted media devices in classes for
curricular purposes, Norris et al (2011) argue that there is a difference between
inserting computers in classroom as a supplemental tool, and using it as an
essential resource. In the former computers are simply present in a class that
basically follows a conservative curriculum; in the latter computers are actively
used in class, stimulating active and personalized learning, implying that the
possibility of making mobile media devices play for or against the learning
environment relies a great deal on the way instructors incorporate them in their
classes.
Grinols and Rajesh (2014), based on a literature review about use of media
devices in class, argue that a complete ban of media devices might be difficult to
implement, and finding ways of incorporating media devices for conducting
activities during the lesson might be a better approach, suggesting that the use of
mobile devices in class has the potential of being a link between the classroom
and the “real world”.
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There is a deficit in research regarding the perspective from teachers about
students’ media use in class. Few materials bring actual statements by
instructors, such as Yamamoto (2007) that accounts exclusively his own
experience instead of results of empirical procedures, and Avidov-Ungar and
Magen-Nagar (2014), which explore teachers’ resistance to technology adoption
in primary and secondary schools for curricular purposes, not taking students’
free media use into account.
Therefore, this study aims to explore what university instructors think of and
how they deal with students’ media use during classes. Based on the proposal of
the three-component view of attitudes (Rosenberg & Hovland, 1960) that
considers attitudes a construct of cognitive, affective and behavioral elements,
this investigation takes into consideration the implicit (cognitive + affective) and
behavioral aspects of university instructors’ attitudes. Hence, this investigation
aims to answer the following questions:
RQ1: According to instructors’ implicit attitudes, what are the implications that
students’ media use behavior in classrooms bring to the educational
environment?
RQ2: How favorable are instructors’ attitudes concerning students’ media use
behavior in university classrooms?
RQ3: How do implicit attitudes work as predictors of behavioral attitudes?
Methods
An exploratory mixed methods study was designed to understand university
instructors’ perspective of the impact students’ media use and multitasking
behavior in class has on the educational environment. The qualitative phase was
conducted first, collecting the factors that lecturers consider to be most impacted
in the educational environment by students’ media use and media multitasking
behavior in class. The data collected in the interviews answered RQ1, and
informed the development of the survey used in the quantitative phase. The
survey measured how favorable the attitudes of instructors were (RQ2), and
allowed to verify the relationship between instructors’ implicit and behavioral
attitudes (RQ3).
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Qualitative phase
In the first phase, three semi-structured interviews were conducted with a
purposive sample consisting of three university instructors, all females, two from
Brazil and one from Germany. Two of them belong to Social Science and one
from Natural Science. Two have in average five years of experience in teaching
and one has over 30 years.
As the first research question of this study seeks to verify “what are the
implications to the educational environment that university instructors identify in
students’ media use behavior in classrooms”, the interviewed instructors’ speech
associated to the literature review made it possible to list positive and negative
implications that students’ media use in class brings to the learning environment
(Figure 1).
These positive and negative implications correspond to the implicit attitudes of
lecturers towards students’ mentioned behavior. Behavioral attitudes were also
collected (Figure 2), and together with implicit attitudes, were adopted in the
survey to measure in the quantitative phase how favorable instructors’ attitudes
are towards students’ media behavior.
Quantitative phase
The quantitative phase of the study collected data through a survey, which
consisted of a self-administered questionnaire with unsupervised administration,
distributed via Internet, in English language. The respondents for the survey
were recruited by means of a convenience sample, moreover, the respondents
were asked to forward the link to their contacts, classifying it also as a snowball
sample. In total, the survey had 146 university instructors as respondents, 70%
males and 30% females, mean age 46 (SD: 11.12), mainly from Germany (53%)
and Brazil (28%), mostly from Social Sciences (27%) and Technological
Sciences (23%).
Findings
As the second research question investigates “how favorable instructors’
attitudes are concerning students’ media use behavior in university classrooms”,
descriptive findings illustrate the positive and the negative implications caused
by students’ media use behavior in class that instructors recognize the most
(Figure 1), and the actions they most frequently adopt to deal with it (Figure 2).
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The most recognized positive outcomes of students’ media use behavior is the
independence students gain on the possibility to look up for information on their
devices during the class without the need to ask the instructor, and that having
media devices in class help instructors in their teaching activities. On the other
hand, the negatively impacted aspects most recognized by instructors were the
ability of students to engage in a deeper reflection process of the content worked
in class, and the attention of students on the activities of the class.
Figure 1. Implicit attitudes: means of positive (left) and negative (right) implications caused by
students’ media use in class recognized by instructors.
3,44
3,4
3,13
3,12
3,1
3,02
3,01
2,99
2,8
2,74
Independence of students
Help to teaching activity
Help students learn
Student' participation
Relevant to career
Context of contents
Interaction
Spontaneous tasks
Efficiency of classes
Motivation for teaching
0
Positive to students and teachers
1
2
3
4
Negative to students
Threat to teachers’ relevance
3,41
3,3
3,08
3,07
2,95
2,93
2,89
2,61
2,41
2,34
2,07
Distraction for students
Information processing
Difficult to control
Students not interested
Students are not in line
Worse results
Irritation
Distraction for teacher
Teacher is irrelevant
Bad feeling
Threaten to teacher
0
1
2
3
4
Negative to teachers
Left out of index building
In general, the means of the positive implications are higher than the negative
ones, indicating that instructors’ implicit attitudes towards students’ media use
behavior in class tend to be more favorable.
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In terms of actions, that is, behavioral attitudes that instructors adopt concerning
their students’ media use and multitasking in class, Figure 2 shows that the
acceptance of this behavior as a trait of the present generations, thus something
normal in society today, including in classrooms, is the most reported behavior,
followed by adapting their method of teaching to make their classes more
interesting and win their students’ attention, and calling students’ attention
verbally when they believe that multitasking is not acceptable in determined
moments of the class.
Figure 2. Behavioral attitudes: means of actions instructors take to deal with
students’ media use in class.
Accept behavior
Adapt method
Call attention
Ask students to
Incorporate
Set rules
Move to check
Ask to switch off
Forbid
3,78
3,36
2,86
2,72
2,69
2,32
2,17
2,11
1,62
0
Positive actions
1
Negative actions
2
3
4
Left out of index building
The third research question is concerned to “how do implicit attitudes work as
predictors of behavioral”. Factor analyses extracted four components from 16
variables that measured teachers’ implicit attitudes: “perception of positive
impacts on students’ and teachers’ sides”, “perception of negative impacts on
teachers’ side”, “perception of negative impacts on students’ side”, and “feeling
of threat to teacher’s relevance”, and two components from eight variables that
measured behavioral attitudes: “favorable actions” and “unfavorable actions”(see
Figure 1 and Figure 2 for the variables that belong to each component). The
following variables were left out of index building due to double loadings:
Motivation, Spontaneous tasks, Students lack interest, Difficult to control, Worse
results, Accept behavior.
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Table 1: Tests results for predictors of positive and negative actions.
Positive actions
Negative actions
2
r
R = .40
n = 125
beta
r
Positive students and teachers
.63***
.69***
.13 n.s.
Negative to students
-.35***
.07 n.s.
.07 n.s.
Negative to teachers
-.30***
.01 n.s.
.22**
Threat to teachers’ relevance
-.08 n.s.
R2 = .05
n = 126
beta
.22**
.12 n.s
*** = p < .001, ** = p < .01.
Pearson-correlation tests and regression analyses were calculated to predict
instructors’ behavioral attitudes based on their perception of positive and
negative implications of students’ media use in class. Table 1 shows the results
of tests for predictors of positive actions. A significant regression equation was
found in perception of positive implications to both students and instructors as
predictor of positive behavioral attitudes (beta = .69, t(124) = 9.03 p < .001.),
explaining a significant proportion of variance in positive actions (R2 = .40,
F(124) = 81.48, p < .001). Concerning negative actions, perception that students’
media use in class impacts negatively the instructor’s job was a significant
predictor (r(126) = .22, p < .01), whilst the perceived negative impact on the
student side was not a significant predictor (r(125) = .07, n.s.).
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Discussion
Instructors see positive and negative implications in students’ media use. Higher
means of positive implications and positive actions indicate that instructors, at
least in this sample, tend to have more favorable implicit and behavioral attitudes
towards students’ media use in class. Concerning actions, it is possible to see
that even the majority of lecturers accepts this behavior, they also recognize it
has potential to cause negative effects in class, like distracting students, therefore
they make an effort to make their classes more attractive, but also call attention
verbally when they judge necessary to prevent the negative effect of this
behavior. Calling students’ attention verbally is a milder action to control
students’ media use in class compared to other actions, ranging from setting
rules to forbidding the use of devices in class, which would be the strictest action
against media multitasking behavior. The low means express that the strictest
actions against students’ media use in class are the least frequent adopted by
instructors.
Even though the two most recognized negative implications (students’
distraction and harm to information processing) impact primarily students, only
negative implications that impacted the instructor was found to be a predictor of
teachers’ behaviors against students’ media use behavior in class. Thus, as the
teacher is a key figure in the process of successfully digitalizing educational
settings, these results suggest that in order to promote more favorable actions
concerning media use in classrooms, efforts should be invested in highlighting
the positive outcomes it can bring to the learning environment, and discuss
solutions and treatments to the negative outcomes it may bring to the teacher’s
job.
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