What I Need To Know
Everyday I am in the classroom, both as a student and a teacher. Across the board, there is one constant in every class. Each student seems to be preoccupied with something besides the actual material. Each student is either texting, listening to music, or is simply not paying attention. Even though I am guilty of these same actions myself, the frequency as to which it happens with others is astounding. So, I would like to discover if there is a relationship between the amount of distracted time students spend during class time and assessment scores. I further wanted to know if certain students were more susceptible to these distracted actions.
What I Know Or Assume
Distracted time seems to be plaguing classrooms, and despite possible repercussions, students continue to use their devices or fail to pay attention, but why? There are many possible reasons for these actions but the few that are most probable are as follows:
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They are bored.
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They do not understand the material.
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They do not care about the class.
While some of these reasons may seem harsh, they are most likely the truth. If a student is ahead of the class or they completely understand and do not need to review, most will take it upon themselves to just get on their phone until something new gets introduced.
If students do not understand the material, some will shut down and get on their phones because they adopt the mentality that if they do not understand right away, they do not see a point in putting forth effort in order to understand.
And lastly, if students do not care about the subject or the material, they will not pay attention simply because they think it is a waste of their time.
With all of these factors considered, I believe that there is most definitely going to be a decrease in assessment scores as the amount of time students spend distracted increase.
I also believe that the type of students who are most likely to be distracted are those who are far excelling the course and those who are not passing. I believe this assertion will be true because those students will be the most bored and the ones that do not understand. The average student will be the most attentive.
The Search
There is not an abundance of studies to consult about this specific topic due to its relative newness in schools. However, there are books and articles which grasp a similar concept. After tireless reading and talking to teachers, I came across many sources that were rather unbiased and simply just statistical information. The fact of the matter is, no matter what type of student you are, you need to pay attention in class to be the most successful. This I assumed for sure, but when I interviewed my mentor, she only solidified it.
Interview
When did you know you wanted to become a teacher? Was it always something you wanted to do?
--> Yes, actually it was. When I was little I loved acting like I was a teacher by creating lesson plans, "teaching" stuffed animals, and grading papers with stickers. In high school, I decided that wanted to be a math teacher because I had 3 awesome teachers and one REALLY bad one.
- My reflection: I did the same thing when I was younger! I feel as if I am taking the same path as my mentor. I also decided that I wanted to teach math while I was in high school, so it was awesome to get to see how similar my mentor and I are!!
What is the hardest thing about your job?
--> Honestly, my biggest issue is with the people that I work with because at times they can pose challenges.
- My reflection: This was interesting to find out because I would have guessed the most challenging thing would be the actual teaching, not dealing with coworkers so that was very surprising.
The easiest?
--> Being in the classroom and doing what I love to do.
- My reflection: I am glad that the easiest thing about being a teacher is working with kids and teaching!
What is something you wish you could change about your profession?
--> I wish that in education, especially math, that curriculum did not change so often. I wish we could keep standards for about 5 years or so and then change it versus constant change.
- My reflection: I completely understand how frustrating this can be, and that is exactly why I eventually want to pursue educational policy reform.
Have you noticed a correlation at all between distracted time in class and test scores?
--> Yes, I noticed that students who are distracted in class by cellphones, other students, or distracted themselves tend to score lower on summative assessments.
- My reflection: This is unsurprising because in my short amount of time being in the classroom I have also noticed this as a general rule.
What actions do you take to attempt to combat the amount of distracted time students take up during class?
--> I redirect students, sometimes I take cellphones, change of seating arrangements usually do the job.
- My reflection: I am not sure what else could be done to keep students engaged so this response was to be expected.
Are there any type of students that are more likely to use more distracted time than others?
--> Kids that have attention issues and students who over the course of their school careers who have struggled with math tend to find ways so they don’t have to do the work.
- My reflection: I also think that the students who are most distracted are those who need to be paying the most attention. I think that because they do not understand the material, they shut down and get their phone out instead of asking for help.
Is there anything you wish to find out through my research of distracted time?
--> I want to see the results to see if your assertion is true.
- My reflection: I am so glad she is as excited to see the results as I am!
How do you deal with questioning parents?
--> I do pretty well, when I was younger dealing with parents was nervous, but now I know what is going on with their students better than they do and a lot of times parents are just misinformed from their students.
- My reflection: I can only imagine how difficult it is to deal with angry parents, it is comforting to know that most of the anger is stemming from the parents wanting their children to succeed.
Do you have any advice for me as a future educator?
-->Stick with it even when you are forced to do little projects and things that you do not think are important, because they end up mattering and will make you a better teacher in the process.
- My reflection: I am glad she gave me this advice, it will help me to keep my positivity and my eye on becoming an amazing teacher!!
After the conclusion of this interview, I got to think about how I should go about the rest of my research. I decided to collect data from my class and see if I could prove a correlation between assessment scores and distracted time. During consequent weeks, I discreetly timed random students during class when they were distracted. Then I compared their before assessment averages and their after assessment averages using this system:
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90 and above: Distinguished student (d)
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89-80: Proficient student (p)
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79-70: Average student (a)
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69-lower: Does Not Pass (dnp)
I also assigned random letters to students so that their identities would not be compromised and their privacy respected. The purpose of this observational collection of data was simply to attempt to prove statistical evidence.
What I Discovered
Overwhelmingly-- the more distracted time students spend in class, the lower they score on assessments. This applies to all students: gifted, average, and struggling. The more engaged a student is, the more likely they are to retain the information presented to them. A misconception with students being distracted usually falls on who is responsible. I have discovered, this is not the case. While it is a majority of their responsibility to put down the technology and pay attention, it is also the responsibility of the teacher to set clear rules regarding technology. Do not get me wrong, it is 99% on the students to be responsible for their own learning (especially in high school) but there is a slight responsibility to the teacher to create a framework of rules for the students to follow. This fact that students tend to score lower if they are distracted has definitely opened my eyes to how to help my students as well as help myself to be the best learner as possible.
The data that I collected can be summed in this table:
Each student is represented by a letter. Some of the columns read OMIT. These students were omitted from my data collection due to extended absences.
Some notable statistics from this data:
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the mean distracted time = 14.3003 minutes
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the median distracted time = 6.51 minutes
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the correlation coefficient (r) = -0.56
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The correlation coefficient tells us that there is a moderate, negative, linear relationship between distracted time and subsequent test scores.
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So, there is indeed a relationship between the two variables I hypothesized. The more distracted time students spent in class, the lower they scored on their assessments. Be mindful of this for yourself and your students.
I also noticed an obvious trend-- those who were not passing tended to spend more class time distracted than those who were passing. I also noticed that the students that spent the least time distracted fell into the range of proficient and average students.