Cell Phone Anxiety: Extended Edition

Yesterday I posted some research about cell phone anxiety. You may have noticed that while I referenced a science journal article I didn't talk much about the results. Indeed, the only results I listed were descriptive (basic counting that describes a behavior) and qualitative (as opposed to quantitative). This is because of some fundamental flaws with the data as described in the article. So for those of you interested in such things here is the extended review enumerating three big problems I had with the data:

1. Sampling Error. The author state that they began with 47 participants but 24 had dropped out or otherwise been disqualified before the start of the experiment.  The problem is we can't be sure if there was some other extraneous variable contributing to the high attrition rate. For example, if those 24 dropped out because the idea of being without their cell phone for 3 or 5 days was too threatening then the study missed the opportunity to measure their anxiety. Or maybe not. The thing is that we don't, and can't, know the  possible confound of the sample selection.
2. Median Split. The authors used a median split (M=92) to determine high- vs low- texting participants. The problem here is that someone with 91 texts per day is in one group while someone with 93 is in another. Sure the line has to be drawn somewhere, but when you have a small sample size, it is hard to distinguish the difference between groups with a median split, especially if data is clustered near the median (although we don't know if that was the case here). A better solution might be to use thirds so you have a high-, moderate, and low-texting groups, which might lead to more meaningful comparisons between high- and low-.
3. Low Sample Size. Of course this is the big one. With only 23 participants stretched across four groups there simply is not enough data for meaningful statistical analysis, not with humans anyway. When doing animal research your samples are so homogeneous (there is little individual difference between rats) that you can get away with small sample sizes. In fact to do regression the rule of thumb I'd always heard was that you'd need at least 60 per group. That might be hard to get for some researchers and there are statistical tricks that get used (like bootstrapping) to work around that number. But for this study, the sample is just way to small and, to be fair, the authors acknowledge this in the discussion.

That said the  lit review and theory in the paper were good. Some of the descriptive and qualitative results were interesting. So while statistically almost meaningless, I feel as though the paper is still a valuable contribution to the relatively barren landscape of research into cell phone restriction anxiety.

• Dorothy Skierkowski & Rebecca M. Wood (2012). To text or not to text? The importance of text messaging among college-aged youth Computers in Human Behavior, 28 (2), 744-756 DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2011.11.023

Cell Phone Anxiety

Editor's Selection Icon Earlier I wrote about cell phone rudeness in the classroom. In that post I mentioned that asking students to go without cell phones is like asking them to go without friends. That statement generated a lot of interest from faculty and students int he comments, on facebook, and in person so I thought I would share a little bit of research that backs up my statement.

In a recently published article (see below for reference) Dorothy Skierkowski and Rebecca Wood tracked college-aged youth's anxiety over a 3- or 5-day texting restriction. That is to say, for three or five days participants in the study were not allowed to use text messaging. In spite of the studies extremely small sample size (n=23), they had some interesting results. They found that participants that were identified has high-volume texters (greater than 92 texts per day on average) thought about texting an average of 47 times per day during the restricted period. Even the low-volume texters thought about it 23 times on average. In psychology we might consider those repetitive worrisome thoughts as rumination, a hallmark of anxiety.

Another important finding from this study involved the open-ended survey responses from students collected during the restriction. The authors sum those responses with the following sentence:

 "Clearly, asking students to restrict their texting behavior made a powerful impact on most study participants, to the extent that some were not able to refrain from doing so, a large number believed their relationships had worsened over the duration of the study, and most endured the effects of texting restriction with a moderate to high degree of annoyance, anxiety, and/or stress. "

So it is because of this and similar studies that I think we need to review the idea of the cell-phone ban in the classroom setting. While this study involved restricted use over a matter of days, it was still observed that students frequently thought about texting and failed to comply with text-messaging restrictions. So my fear is that banning cell phones might be just as detrimental to learning as allowing them in class. I decided to do my own experiment to gather data on how cell phones impact learning in MY classroom. I let you know how that turned out in a future post.

UPDATE: If  you are interested in statistics you might like my follow-up to this post which more closely examines the statistics in this article.

Dorothy Skierkowski & Rebecca M. Wood (2012). To text or not to text? The importance of text messaging among college-aged youth Computers in Human Behavior, 28 (2), 744-756 DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2011.11.023

About Me: Hired as an Adjunct

A Professor

In 2008 I obtained a Master's in Behavioral Neuroscience. It was a strange pick-a-path adventure getting to that point, but that's another story. After earning this degree I wanted to find a way to use it to make money. There are actually several options for example I could've worked in an animal behavior lab, or other animal research facility. But I thought teaching would be a better choice. So I looked on-line and found a job posting at St. Charles Community College for an adjunct professor.

If you didn't know an adjunct is a part-time professor. There are basically two types of adjunct faculty. First, there are the specialists. These adjuncts are experts in their field and would like to teach on the side. For example, a sports psychologist that works with a national sports team might teach a night class on sports psychology. The other type of adjunct has been hired to fill a need for classes while avoiding committing (by contract) resources (money, insurance, etc.) to a full-time position. Many of the adjuncts I know end up teaching at multiple colleges; just having a class or two at each campus. If you are a student at SCC the odds are you've had some classes taught by adjuncts.

So after my application had been reviewed I was called in for an interview. Here, to the best of my memory, is the conversation I had with Beth when she called me to set-up my interview:

Mitch: Hello?
Beth: This is Beth Finders from St. Charles Community College, you had applied for the psych adjunct position are you still interested?
M: The wha-- Oh yeah! Yes I'm definitely still interested.
B: Great. Well we are setting up interviews and teaching demos. Do you think you could prepare a teaching demo for us on Friday.
M: . o O ( thinking: teaching demo? Like a lecture? To whom? About what? ) Oh yeah sure, no problem I can have that ... teaching demo ... prepared for you.
B: *pause* Ok, well do it on Learning Theory.
M: . o O ( thinking: wait, what? learning which theories? ) Of course, that makes sense.
B: Will you need anything for the demo?
M: Like props?
B: We have a computer with powerpoint and projector for your use will you need anything else.
M: Oh. Uhm, ... no.
B: Great, we'll see you Friday.

Then I got out one of the Introduction to Psychology textbooks that I had gathering dust on my shelf and looked up learning theory. I was happy to see it was about conditioning (like Pavlov's dogs) which was a topic I liked a lot, and I set about crafting a powerpoint. Really I just had a picture of Pavlov, a chart of the dogs being classically conditioned and an outline to guide my talk.

First I sat down with Beth and Barb and chatted about teaching and my experiences as a student and teaching assistant and how I hope to do better than my teachers. This seemed to sit well with Beth and she asked me to start teaching. I was so nervous when I stood up to talk, but I think I had spoken for a total of 30 seconds when she cut me off. I took this as a bad sign. In retrospect I think she had already made up her mind from the conversation part of the interview and was ready to get on with it.

For the next couple of weeks Beth worked with me to make sure I was ready to be personable with my students and not just lecture of theory. This was awesome since we are on the same page as far as technique goes. She made a ton of resources available to me including syllabi, powerpoints, and sample assignments. In fact, the whole program (Lisa, Vi, Barb, and Marvin), division (is that what the faculty in the SSB are called, I'm still not sure), and other adjuncts (Sylvia and the rest) made me feel welcome and offered a TON of support. While I was still nervous, I at least felt prepared for my first day of class. Two weeks later I was standing in front of my students as a freshly minted adjunct instructor.

Cell Phone Rudeness

Some students text in class. While this is rude and disrespectful towards me, it doesn't really disrupt class or the learning of students nearby. Or does it? There have been two incidents in a previous semester that demonstrated a higher degree of rudeness and I thought I'd share.

During a test I noticed a student texting. I tend not to assume my students are cheating, and simply told her that there is no texting during the test. Not only did she apologize and put her phone away, several other students put their phones away. They did not seem to be actively testing (I do watch my students take exams) but obviously they were anticipating the possibility of a text message; doesn't everyone recognize that communicating (whatever the medium) during a test is verboten? The real issue is that 15 minutes later I had to tell the first student a SECOND time to stop texting.

M: You understand why it is not ok to text during the test right?
C: But I wasn't texting about the test.
M: That's even worse. If you were cheating at least I'd know you cared about the test!

The second incident involved a student who came to me outside the classroom just before a test. She explained to me that she wasn't going to be able to stay the whole time because she had a doctor's appointment scheduled opposite class and she wanted to know if she could take the test another time. I was about to tell her that she should've told me sometime sooner because she COULD have taken then test early, and that test or no it is a bad idea to schedule a doctor's visit during class. I was about to tell her that, but I didn't get the chance because as soon as I started answering her she whipped out her phone and began responding to a text message she had gotten. I stopped mid-sentence and went on in to class.

Students texting on a break from class

I think it is unreasonable for me to expect students to turn their phones off entirely or even to ignore text messages they get in class. I mean this is the new thing, and phones (for good or ill) are integrated into their lives. Asking our students to go without cell phones is like asking them not to have friends. In fact, I've gathered some experimental data on classroom cell-phone behavior, cell-phone anxiety and student learning which I'll analyze and reveal in a future post. Fortunately MOST of my students are responsible with their phones. Just... please don't be rude.

About This Blog

I was told I could blog about whatever I want. I suspect that you don't want that. I spend a lot of time thinking about lasers, dragons, training rats, politics, killing rats, using lasers to kill rats, wondering if dragons would even bother to eat rats, etc. You probably aren't interested in most of what I think about.  So what to write?

Right now my vague plan is to give my readers a peek behind the curtain of the college faculty. I think all too often students come to class, sit and listen, and then sprint to their cars and drive home with nary a thought as to the effort put forth to bring knowledge into the classroom. What I would like to do is inform about what it takes for a professor to prepare for class, what other things faculty do outside the classroom, what the scholarship of teaching and learning means for me, what research I've been doing on my teaching, and maybe some stories about the classroom and/or me.

I was nearly a clergyman (well an aptitude test suggested it as a career), so maybe I'll use the principles of homiletics in the preparation of my posts. That is to say I'll try to string posts together within a theme of some sort. I'm planning two strings of post right now the first of which is a continuation of the "about me" post from last week to relate my history at SCC from hire to now. The second string of posts will be about cellphones in the classroom and some research I've conducted on how they effect (for good and ill) student learning.