Undertaken as part of the Government’s Screen Use and Addiction Research Fund, the research by Macquarie University involved the surveying of some 1057 students, 914 teachers and 1686 parents and carers from the state’s public, Catholic and independent schools about digital device use, with researchers concluding that “their responses suggest the reality of screen use in schools is not always what the community might assume”.
Teachers were generally in favour of limits being imposed on students’ screen time both at school and at home. When used for classroom learning, 54 per cent supported a time limit (63 per cent of primary teachers versus 46 per cent of secondary teachers).
Teachers suggested an average time limit of 126 minutes per day on this front.
The findings follow the NSW Government’s recent announcement of restrictions on screen use in public schools, with Education Minister Prue Car indicating the study would inform school policy moving forward and lead to better outcomes for young people – both socially and academically.
Teachers face significant challenges in managing student attention and minimising off-task screen behaviour, the study found, with many flagging negative impacts on both students’ focus and peer interactions.
More than half reported that students are frequently distracted by unrelated content on digital devices, and half said their students were regularly distracted by classmates using screens.
Just 42 per cent said they were to shift students’ attention away from screens when asked, while almost a third said that that screen use often or always has detrimental effects on students’ social interactions in the classroom.
Only 10 per cent of secondary school leaders and 31 per cent of primary school leaders reported that students can self-regulate their use of technology when learning.
One experienced educator recently told EducationHQ that the distraction and disruption caused by digital devices was on par with that previously caused by now-banned mobile phones.
The lure of devices is ever present, and especially for senior students, the teacher said.
“We have a lot of trouble trying to get students to put their device away during those times when they are not allowed to be using them.
“During form assembly at the start of the day, which is supposed to be collaborative time, they’re not allowed to have their device open, or then during explicit instruction or under the order of the teacher – but it’s actually a big challenge getting them to shut the lids.
“They’re like jack-in-the-boxes, they keep popping back up. It’s like they can’t resist them.”
Students have been sitting in class appearing to be working, but actually they are shopping online or messaging other students and arranging to meet up in the toilets, for example, the teacher shared.
“The kids are very quick – they do other things and you can’t trust that they’re using the devices [as intended].”
Students themselves flagged issues with their ability to self-regulate their device use in class, reporting that they do not always use technology in purposeful ways.
The research found that just 20 per cent of primary students and 12 per cent of secondary students use screens only when needed at school.
And while 81 per cent of primary students agreed that they would always stop using screens immediately when asked by the teacher, just 59 per cent of secondary students said they would.
“This may reflect not only inhibitory control but also a reduced willingness to follow teacher directions,” the researchers noted.
More primary than secondary students indicated that they self-monitor their screen use, with 28 per cent indicating that they always check the time when they use screens compared to just 8 per cent of secondary students.
The impact of devices on student wellbeing also emerged as a concern amongst teachers.
Around 40 per cent agreed or strongly agreed that there are wellbeing issues when students use technologies in their classes, with concern higher amongst secondary teachers.
“The excessive use of technology and its impact on children’s mental health and education is a major concern for parents and schools today,” Car said in response to the research findings.
“These real concerns, alongside strong evidence of the learning benefits of reading and writing with paper and pen, is why the Minns Labor Government has introduced limits on screen use in our schools.
“Students benefit from the use of screens and technology in schools when they are used in an intentional way with a specific and age-appropriate educational purpose.
“The introduction of age-appropriate screen use limits in schools will ensure that children continue to develop reading and writing skills and avoid the distraction students are themselves reporting…” Car added.
Researchers also conducted 68 classroom observations, finding there are “recurring practical constraints of technology-rich classrooms”.
“Login delays, device readiness, software glitches and troubleshooting absorbed 6 per cent of class time and could disrupt lesson momentum, requiring teachers to adapt tasks or provide additional technical support,” the study flagged.
And when off-task behaviour occurred, it was most often “brief and situational, emerging during transitions, periods of waiting, or when monitoring was necessarily distributed during independent work”, rather than being attributable to devices alone.
“This pattern reinforces the importance of designing learning activities that minimise ‘dead time’, make expectations explicit, and enable active teacher timely intervention,” researchers asserted.
In August, a public petition calling for generative AI to be removed from Australian schools and a return to device-free learning quickly gained momentum.
Launched by the Heads Up Alliance – an ever-growing community of families who have opted to delay social media and smartphones for their children – the campaign has attracted more than 31,000 signatures since going live on Change.org.
Dany Elachi, co-founder and director of the Alliance, argued that we haven’t been nearly vigilant enough about the technology that we let into our learning environments.
“We do want to see a return to the intentional use of technology and screens in schools,” he said at the time.
“We think what’s happened over the last few years, much like how smartphones and social media kind of snuck up on us and it took us 15 years to realise, ‘oh, maybe this isn’t the healthiest thing for our children’.
“We feel that something similar has happened in education where we adopted a lot of these new shiny technologies, but without really asking for the evidence first: where is the evidence that this is going to improve reading? Where is the evidence that this is going to improve literacy, numeracy, writing, and so on?
“We just thought, because it’s new, because it’s an advance on the existing technology, that it must therefore be better.”
