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A small study into electronic device usage during lectures found that there was minimal difference in scores between those who were distracted while listening to the lecture and those who weren't when there was a quiz afterwards.
Results. The sample was comprised of 26 students. Of these, 17 were distracted in some form (either checking email, sending email, checking Facebook, or sending texts). The overall mean score on the test was 9.85 (9.53 for distracted students and 10.44 for non-distracted students). There were no significant differences in test scores between distracted and non-distracted students (p = 0.652). Gender and types of distractions were not significantly associated with test scores (p > 0.05). All students believed that they understood all the important points from the lecture.
Conclusions. Every class member felt that they acquired the important learning points during the lecture. Those who were distracted by electronic devices during the lecture performed similarly to those who were not. However, results should be interpreted with caution as this study was a small quasi-experimental design and further research should examine the influence of different types of distraction on different types of learning.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by TheB on Wednesday September 17 2014, @07:28AM
Published papers which use statistics should require a statistician to sign off on the study before submission.
There are too many claims made that have no statistical basis. Anyone who took stat101 would know this study's claim is BS. The only claim that could be made is "This study cannot conclude that being distracted at some point during a lecture lowers performance." It shows only slightly more statistical competence than Mythbusters.
Sadly this appears common in academia. I've proofread a few masters theses. 3/4 of them had false statistical claims, and all passed review. One paper claimed a correlation of 95% which would have required a min sample size of 1,000+. 1,500 surveys were sent out, only ~50 were returned!!! I pointed out the error, however the faculty adviser thought it was fine. Sat in on the review and the same adviser was the only board member paying attention. After several papers full of fantasy statistics, I complained to a department head about the total disregard of statistics in masters theses, and was told "Statistics only count for statistics majors. We are only trying to teach the process of a formal paper, and at this stage the result of the paper don't really matter."... So when between a masters degree and a doctorate do they teach distilling truth instead of polluting knowledge? Hopefully other Universities are better.
(Score: 1) by Tanuki64 on Wednesday September 17 2014, @09:15AM
1,500 surveys were sent out, only ~50 were returned!!!
HEY, this is very good. The most common statistic has n=1: 'My uncle/grandfather/father smoked his whole life and died with 95'. ;-)