Why smart kids shouldn’t use laptops in class

For the past 15 years, educators havedebated,exhaustively,the perilsof laptops in the lecture hall. Professors complain that laptops are distraction machines; defenders say that boring classes are to blame — students have always doodled or daydreamed, so what’s the difference that they’re browsing Facebook instead?

The remarkable thing about all the fuss is that, until now, there hasn’t beenreally great data on how classroom computing affects learning. There have been some small-scale, short-term experiments. A2003 studyfound that laptops make it harder for students to remember what they had just learned in lecture. A2014 studyshowed that students are less likely to understand complex ideas when they are forced to take notes by computer instead of by hand. But these were all contrived situations involving immediate recall. It’s less clear how laptop use affects students over the course of a semester.

Now there isan answer, thanks to abig, new experimentfrom economists at West Point, who randomly banned computers from some sections of a popular economics course this past year at the military academy. One-third of the sections could use laptops or tablets to take notes during lecture; one-third could use tablets, but only to look at class materials; and one-third wereprohibited from using any technology.

Unsurprisingly, the students who were allowed to use laptops — and 80 percent of them did — scored worseon the final exam.What’s interesting is that the smartest students seemed to be harmed the most.

Among students with high ACT scores, those in the laptop-friendly sections performed significantly worse than their counterparts in the no-technology sections.In contrast, there wasn’t much of a difference between students with low ACT scores — those who were allowed to use laptops did just as well asthose who couldn’t. (The same pattern held true when researchers looked at students with high and low GPAs.)

These results are a bit strange. We might have expected the smartest students to have used their laptops prudently. Instead, they became technology’s biggest victims. Perhaps hubris played a role. The smarter students may have overestimated their ability to multitask. Or the top students might have had the most to gain by paying attention in class.

The size of the laptop disadvantage was modest. The average score on the final was 72 out of 100, and students in sections with laptops scored about 1.7 points lower. But it’s hard to understand what 1.7 points means without knowing how bunched up or far apart people’s test scores were. (For the stats-savvy, the effect sizewasabout 0.2 standard deviations.)

So here’s another way to think about it. The average score on the math section of the SAT last year was 511 out of 800. The difference between exam grades in the laptop-friendly sections and exam grades in the no-laptop sections is equivalent to the difference between scoring a 511 and scoring a 491 on the SAT’s math section. (That’s roughly the same boost a high school studentmight expectfrom hiring an SAT tutor.)

The researchers — Susan Payne Carter, Kyle Greenberg and Michael Walker — were also surprised to find that the tablet-only sections did just as poorly as the laptop-friendly sections. Even though students were not allowed to check email or play games on the tablets, the technology still seemed to interfere with their learning.

Still, these results are probably on the optimistic side. At West Point, sections are capped at 18 students, so the instructors could easily call out people who were obviously goofing off on their laptops. The problem of computer distraction is probablymuch more severe at other colleges, where lectures might hold hundreds of students.

The West Point study haslessons even for those whose baccalaureate days are far behind them. This is yet more evidence thatmultitaskingdoesn’t work. Beware of peoplewho take laptops into meetings — even “just to take notes.”They’re probably not listening to you.

Article Question responses:

1.)Do you agree or disagree with this article? Explain.

2.)Do you feel you learn better with your laptop, or hand-written notes in class?

3.)What is your best method of learning? Explain your answer.

ENG-12 questions/feedback:

1.)What was your favorite activity in this class?

2.)What was your least favorite activity in this class?

3.)If you could change one thing about my teaching style what would it be?

4.)If you could change one thing about ENG-12 what would it be?

5.)What advice would you give Mr. Meredith (constructive criticism) that could help him be a better educator in the future?