Abstract
Cellphone-use in class has many negative effects on students' overall performance. By using a self-developed monitoring-app to record students' cellphone-use in class, this study attempts to explore the relationships of cellphone-use and self-control on academic performance. The subjects of this study are 207 freshmen who take part in advanced mathematics courses, and the research period lasts for 16 weeks. Two-factor ANOVA showed that cellphone-use duration and self-control had an interactive influence on students' academic performance. There was no statistical significance in the influence of cellphone-use frequency and self-control on academic performance. Simple slopes analysis revealed a negative relationship between cellphone-use duration and academic performance for those who were low on self-control, whereas there was no relationship between these constructs for those who were high on self-control. The results show that self-control plays a moderating role in the relationship between cellphone-use duration and academic performance. Self-control could weaken the influence of cellphone-use on academic performance. Furthermore, this study is helpful to better understand the way of cellphone-use affecting academic performance, and suggests appropriate intervention of cellphone-use to help poor self-controlled students achieve better academic performance.
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Funding
This study was supported by Teaching research project of Zhejiang University of science and technology (Grant No. 2022-jg38), Humanities and Social Science (Grant No. 17YJA88004), First class curriculum construction of educational department of Zhejiang Province, (Grant No. Zhejiang Education Office No. 195).
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Appendix
Appendix
Self-control scale
Using the scale provided, please indicate how much each of the following statements reflects how you typically are.
Items | Not at all very much |
|---|---|
1. I am good at resisting temptation | 1───2───3───4───5 |
2. I have a hard time breaking bad habits | 1───2───3───4───5 |
3. I am lazy | 1───2───3───4───5 |
4. I say inappropriate things | 1───2───3───4───5 |
5. I do certain things that are bad for me, if they are fun | 1───2───3───4───5 |
6. I refuse things that are bad for me | 1───2───3───4───5 |
7. I wish I had more self-discipline | 1───2───3───4───5 |
8. People would say that I have | 1───2───3───4───5 |
9. Pleasure and fun sometimes keep me from getting work done | 1───2───3───4───5 |
10. I have trouble concentrating | 1───2───3───4───5 |
11. I am able to work effectively toward long-term goals | 1───2───3───4───5 |
12. Sometimes I can’t stop myself from doing something, even if I know it is wrong | 1───2───3───4───5 |
13. I often act without thinking through all the alternatives | 1───2───3───4───5 |
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Ma, W., Lin, X., Lou, J. et al. The impact of students’ cellphone-use and self-control on academic performance in traditional classroom. Asia Pacific Educ. Rev. 24, 591–598 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-023-09824-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-023-09824-6