Attitude Moderates the Relation between Frequency of Media Multitasking in the Classroom and Delay Discounting
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Attitude Moderates the Relation between Frequency of Media Multitasking in the Classroom and Delay Discounting Yusuke Hayashi 1 Accepted: 19 October 2020 # Association for Behavior Analysis International 2020
Abstract The present study examined whether the attitude toward texting in the classroom moderates the relation between delay discounting and frequency of texting in the classroom. College students completed a survey to assess their attitude and frequency of texting in the classroom. Based on this information, students were stratified into four groups: Appropriate-Frequent, Appropriate-Infrequent, Inappropriate-Frequent, and Inappropriate-Infrequent. The groups were then compared on the degree of delay discounting of hypothetical monetary reinforcers. In the delay-discounting task, participants made repeated choices between $1,000 available after a delay and an equal or lesser amount of money available immediately. The results showed that the attitude toward texting in the classroom moderates the relation between the degree of delay discounting and the frequency of texting in the classroom. Among students who perceive texting in the classroom as inappropriate, those who frequently text in the classroom showed greater rates of delay discounting than those who infrequently text in the classroom, whereas there was no difference in students who perceive texting in the classroom as appropriate. Impulsive characteristics of texting in the classroom from a behavioral economic perspective are discussed. Keywords Texting in the classroom . Delay discounting . Attitude-behavior discrepancy . Media multitasking . Behavioral economics . College students
Media multitasking refers to the use of media when engaging in nonmedia activities or engaging in more than one media activity simultaneously (van der Schuur, Baumgartner, Sumter, & Valkenburg, 2015). Multitasking is more accurately characterized as the rapid switching of multiple tasks (Monsell, 2003) and frequent task switching is shown to lead to 40% loss of productivity relative to single tasking (Rubinstein, Meyer, & Evans, 2001). Nevertheless, media multitasking is almost a standard in our society and it is associated with several negative consequences, such as depression, social anxiety, and sleep issues (Becker, Alzahabi, & Hopwood, 2012; Calamaro, Mason, & Ratcliffe, 2009). Among college students, texting in the classroom (hereafter TIC) is a particularly ubiquitous form of media multitasking. In one survey, 97.5% of college students in the United States self-reported that they occasionally send and read text * Yusuke Hayashi [email protected] 1
Division of Social Sciences and Education, Pennsylvania State University, Hazleton, PA 18202, USA
messages in the classroom (Olmsted & Terry, 2014). Such extensive TIC is a major barrier to students’ academic success. Previous studies have repeatedly shown that TIC is associated with impaired academic performance (Bjornsen & Archer, 2015; Ellis, Daniels, & Jauregui, 2010; Gingerich & Lineweaver, 2014). Gi
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