Abstract
This study evaluates the impact of classroom smartphone use on student performance through two large-scale randomized controlled trials in China. Students were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: (i) smartphones banned, (ii) smartphones allowed and used at will without guidance, (iii) smartphones allowed with teacher prompts to use them for instruction, and (iv) smartphones banned with teachers prompting the use of paper-based aids. Our findings show that unstructured smartphone use reduced performance compared with banning them, whereas teacher-guided use significantly enhanced learning outcomes. Paper-based aids yielded no measurable performance gain over the ban. We analyzed classroom video recordings to track individual-level time spent in each condition. We found that students spent similar total time learning across conditions, but teacher-directed smartphone use produced disproportionately large marginal learning gains outweighing the losses from distraction. Guided use also helped close gender and performance gaps though it risked widening digital divides by major and region. These results suggest educators should receive support to develop purposeful, app-based smartphone instruction materials; policymakers should avoid blanket bans and instead adopt structured usage policies; and tech developers should design classroom-friendly tools aligned with instructional goals. With thoughtful implementation, smartphones can become engines of equity, positive engagement, and learning within the classroom.
We investigate the impact of using smartphones in the classrooms on students’ academic performance. We collaborated with a vocational school in China to randomly allocate students taking Chinese verbal lectures into one of four experimental conditions: (i) smartphones banned, (ii) smartphones allowed and used at will by students without guidance, (iii) smartphones allowed and used at will by students with teachers prompting students to use the smartphones to assist instruction, and (iv) smartphones banned with teachers prompting students to use a paper-based aid to assist instruction. We measured the academic performance gains of students by comparing their scores from identical tests taken at the beginning and the end of the lectures. Our findings indicate that allowing students to use smartphones at will in the classroom without guidance reduced their performance gain compared with when smartphones were banned. However, performance gain increased significantly when teachers asked students to use smartphones to assist with instruction. Students using the paper-based aid instruction performed similarly to those with banned smartphones. To delve into the underlying mechanisms that explain these findings, we analyzed video recordings of the classes to track students’ time spent learning versus being distracted with or without using smartphones. We found that the increased performance gain when smartphones were used to assist instruction came from the marginal benefit associated with smartphone-assisted learning outweighing the negative effect associated with smartphone-induced distraction. We also found that allowing smartphones into the classroom to aid instruction can help bridge educational gaps between male and female students and between low- and high-performing students. However, smartphones in the classroom may also induce a rich-get-richer dynamic by which students in information technology majors or from urban areas benefit more compared with those in non–information technology majors or born in rural areas. Our work contributes to the literature on technology-assisted learning and offers implications for teachers, school administrators, and policymakers to develop policies for smartphone use in classrooms.
History: Karthik Kannan, Senior Editor; Idris Adjerid, Associate Editor.
Funding: The authors acknowledge funding from Temple University [2016 and 2017 Young Scholar Forum Grants].
Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2022.0078 .