263 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. 263 264 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). 264 265 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”. 265 266 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). 266 267 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). 267 268 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. 268 269 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. 269 270 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.). 270 271 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. 271 272 References AVIDOV-UNGAR, Orit, & MAGEN-NAGAR, Noga. Teachers in a changing world: attitudes toward organizational change. Journal of Computers in Education, 2014, 1(4), 227–249. BURAK, Lydia J. Multitasking in the University Classroom. 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