Does multitasking affect academic performance? A study done in California has answered this and more! The leading question was how differently do younger generations task-switch in comparison to older generations and how does this difference play in to student’s performance in school. To figure this question out, a study was created to watch around 300 students from junior high to college age study in their homes or usual environments and see how often they switched between tasks. There are three things that impact task switching, primary task completion, secondary task completion and resumption lag. A separate study found that if the primary task and secondary task are very similar, you will perform worse on the primary and the more concentration you put into the second task, the longer your resumption lag to the first task is as well.
These were the results of the experiment. First, it was established that each age group had their own different kinds of distractions. For the kids in junior high it was video games, high school students were mostly likely to be distracted by texting, and the college students applied more study strategies. The students who were similar in on-task percentage and run length, tended to use technology in the same ways and their preferences for multitasking were akin. The study pointed out that those who preferred to multi-task had much shorter on-task runs than those who didn’t. As for how this affects students academically, the students who used Facebook at least one time during class or study sessions, had lower grades than the students who applied study strategies. Surprisingly, every student of the study was able to only remain on-task for an average of about 6 minutes before switching to another task.
How do we resolve this generations issues with multitasking? We are given three suggestions to help deal with multitasking while studying. The first is an oldie but goodie, teachers and parents are advised to allow students to listen to music while studying. The more familiar the music, the more minor the impact on resumption lag and task-switching there is. Our second piece of advice is to let students use their phones or other technological devices for a 1 minute “technology break,” then follow that up with 15 minutes of uninterrupted study or lesson time. Because they know that they will be allowed to use their devices in 15 minutes, this will allow the students to remain focused on the task at hand instead of constantly thinking internally about checking their phones. The third and final option mentioned in the study is to sharpen your metacognitive skills. By choosing a time, say during a lecture that you believe less important information is being given, to take a break and check your device, you are less likely to be distracted during something important. Much unlike students who allow themselves to be distracted every time they receive a notification. By applying one or a combination of these tricks to your study sessions or classroom, you can improve learning.
Reflection:
Writing a news piece over a scientific study is quite difficult. Doing this project has made me want to take back everything I said in my news article critique. The hardest part for me was trying to write for an audience that hasn’t read the journal. I really had to think, “Would I understand this if I had not already read about the study?” I’m sure I didn’t catch everything, but I tried to make my piece as accessible as I could without sounding condescending. As you can probably guess, the second hardest part was picking out what information to include and what information to discard without changing the results or fibbing about the study. Although I told myself that I wouldn’t, I decided to leave out the limitations of the study. They take quite a bit away from the results and, in my opinion and like we hear in class, it just makes the news article much less “sexy.” My article is a bit shorter than the original one because I didn’t write about the second study in which psychology students had to answer text messages while watching a video and were tested on the material afterward. That is because the journal, although suggesting that we use our metacognitive skills, barely mentioned this experiment and I felt like I didn’t have enough information about it to put it in my piece. This project has definitely taught me that I should be more cautious about what I read in the news, but I should also give authors a break because their job is not as easy as it seems.
Link to the news article:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rewired-the-psychology-technology/201204/attention-alert-study-distraction-reveals-some
Link to the journal:
http://www.csudh.edu/psych/facebook_and_texting_made_me_do_it-media-induced_task-switching_while_studying-compuers_in_human_behavior-2013-rosen_carrier_cheever.pdf