Use of Digital Devices in University

Running Head: Use of Digital Devices in University
Use of Digital Devices in University
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Use of Digital Devices in University
Table of Contents
Chapter 3. Application...............................................................................................................2
3.1. Understanding preferential factors – Students’ perspectives..........................................2
3.1.1. Digitised learning preference.......................................................................................3
3.1.2. Non – Digitised learning preference............................................................................4
3.2. Thesis Statement.............................................................................................................4
3.3. Discussion of results and implications............................................................................5
3.3.1. Implications on Short term memory............................................................................5
3.4. Open - Book assessment as a contributing factor...........................................................6
3.5. Recommendation.............................................................................................................7
3.5.1. Non mandatory use of digital devices..........................................................................7
3.5.2. Physical and mental health intervention......................................................................8
3.5.3. Use of network monitoring and amending classroom policies....................................9
References................................................................................................................................11

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Use of Digital Devices in University
Chapter 3. Application.
Around the world the use of digital device in classroom has become a common trend.
There are various options regarding the effects as well as the benefits about the use of the
mobile phones mobile phones in the university premises. The usage of the most of the digital
device in the university education is largely dependent on the learning styles and preferences
of the individuals. Recently, in many universities ICT (Information and Communication
Technology) based classroom teachings have been recommended by the educational
innovations, but it is not a mandatory incorporation (Kaware & Sain, 2015). However, in the
present days the use of the digital devices like laptops, smartphones, iPads and ebook readers
for instances like Kindle are used for the purpose of testing the outcome of these applications
on the students in order to know how much the students are getting benefitted from the use of
digital systems of learning in the classroom (Jacobsen & Forste, 2011).
3.1. Understanding preferential factors – Students’ perspectives.
The students have been given freedom to use the devices in the classroom so that they
can take help from the devices to study on their own (Jacobsen & Forste, 2011; Kuznekoff,
Munz & Titsworth, 2015). It is important to know the responses of the students for the
purpose of using digital devices in the class so that the matter can be understood from their
own perspectives also. Therefore, for this purpose a survey has been conducted taking few
students from a university and those students have been divided into two groups. One group
consists of the students who regularly use digital devices in the classroom, whereas the other
group is consist of those students who prefer text books as the primary material for learning.

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3.1.1. Digitised learning preference.
The first group which consists of those students who primarily use digital
technologies for studying is named as the digitised learning group. They use smartphones,
laptops, tablets, iPhones and Kindles for making their regular interaction with the study
materials The students are provided with Cloud based distribution systems like Google drive
and Google classroom and with the help of these systems they are provided the study
materials (Buzzard et al., 2011). The study materials are read on the devices and on the same
they take comments and highlight the specific areas on those same devices. The students of
this group enjoy certain benefits by using the digital devices in the classroom but these
benefits are limited to learning, memorising and accessing the relevant areas of the
documents easily with the help of numerous functions like keyboard search base, fast
transition to a particular page number (Buzzard et al., 2011). However, the use of digital
devices in the classroom has one drawback and this drawback has been reported by the
students. They complained that they are unable to take notes efficiently. The students have
complained that most of them have to switch over notebooks and pens for taking notes and
that they use later when needed. Few of the students prefer taking the direct textual notes
while others write down the important points and later they use symbols for connecting those
points (Weaver & Nilson, 2005). This way of taking notes is time consuming for most of the
students as they are using digital devices so they mostly have to rely on the task of typing
along with taking explicit textual notes. Another issue has been posted by the students that it
is difficult for them to retain them for a longer period of time. On the other hand, in the short
term retention they do not face much difficulties. Again, in terms of content accuracy, they
are not being provided with the ample details at the time of the tests as they focus most of
their times on too many sources of the content.

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3.1.2. Non – Digitised learning preference.
The second study group which is named as the non-digitised learning group, in this
group almost of the students have stated that there is no major issues which they have to face
in terms of learning and remembering the content of the materials. The use textbooks which
are paper based and take down their notes on a paper as well (Li et al., 2012). According to
them, it would have been easier for them to use digital devices in the classroom but at the
same time they feel that the lectures of the teachers are substantial enough for making the
learning easier. They have also stated that they are able to focus on the theoretical aspects of
the subject more, with due respect to memory and retention and are also able to concentrate
more on the lectures of the teacher when they say them or display them in the class. At the
same time, they are also able to retain more information when they learn from the books as
well as the study material which are provided to them by the teacher in the class (Liu, 2012).
It ah also ben stated by the students that their short term memory does not help much in
retaining the content which are taught in the class but mostly they get benefitted in retaining a
lot of valuable information in their long term memory. They have also learned the primary
learning material in detailed with adequate information and these have provided much more
details about the correlations and connections of certain content in a better way with proper
accuracy. In terms of retaining information regarding crucial theory and practical this has
helped a lot.
3.2. Thesis Statement.
The aim of this study is to find out the relevance about a particular type of classroom
engagement either based on the advantages and disadvantages use of digital devices in the
classroom for providing learning solutions or not. The literature review which have been

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Use of Digital Devices in University
done in the chapter two is based on that and a thesis statement has also been identified as
follows-
In the university classes the effect of use of digital devices has been found to be
negative when the overall outcomes of the education are concerned.
The preferential factors which are useful for using either digital or non-digital systems
of learning have already been highlighted in the current chapter. The next section is
concerned with the possible implications of the use of digital devices in the classrooms and
this section has also attempted to focus on the preventive or the counter measures which are
needed to be undertaken for benefitting the students in a significant manner for the betterment
of the learning and educational outcomes.
3.3. Discussion of results and implications.
According to the survey results it has been found that the advantage in terms of
learning, retention and accuracy for the purpose of retention of the content is in the favour of
those students who are learning using the traditional textbooks and the methods of note taking
in the classroom. In the context of present day classroom, it has been found that there are
large number of students who are in favour of using digital tools as the learning methods in
the classroom. There are different audio visual tools like YouTube videos, online lectures,
podcasts, virtual classrooms, etc which have made it easier for the students to learn in the
curricula which are based on the incorporation of ICT in major international universities
(Kaware & Sain, 2015). On the other hand, the students who are in favour of using traditional
textbooks and classroom lectures are also intended to use the digital devices but they want to
use it only as a supporting tool.

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3.3.1. Implications on Short term memory.
The students who use textbooks and take manual notes have been found to show
higher levels of retention and have a better level of accuracy for retaining the content in
comparison to those students who study using digital devices when it comes to content which
has been taught earlier in the classroom. Therefore, it can be seen from here that students
preference type in order to use a particular learning style or resources will not be necessarily
corresponding with the expected outcome of learning. There have been various and according
to those researches, the students when put their cognitive skills for learning something from
any textbook will have more capabilities to retain more content with better accuracy and for a
longer period of time than those students who use digital devices for the purpose of studying
as additional resources. This point is also correlated with the fact that there are wide variety
and large amount of information are available online and this helps those students who have a
preference of using digital devices in the classroom. This also helps them to understand the
content better and to find relevant results as well as other alternative resources and materials
for exploring (Wood et al., 2012). However, this has a limiting factor and according to this
factor the students who are unable to put their concentration on the ain material of the
textbook resultant to fail in retention of the valuable information for a longer period of time
without consulting the resources regularly.
3.4. Open - Book assessment as a contributing factor.
The recent development of the testing of open-book as an assessment and evaluation
patter is a primary aspect that has come out in this context. Open-book testing has been
defined as a concept in which the students are no longer be tested on the basis of the
information which they are able to retain as well as reproduce in their examinations (Gharib,

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Use of Digital Devices in University
Philips & Mathew, 2012). It is focused on the identification of how much the students can
produce and how they are applying their knowledge in an appropriate manner in a practical
situation with the help of the resources which they have studied. According to the research,
the students are allowed to carry their laptop and other digital devices in an open-book testing
to the test centers (Gharib, Philips & Mathew, 2012). However, the information can be easily
accessed with the help of computers and tablets particularly in those areas where the
information are highlighted in the text book. The students normally highlight the bookmarks
in the particular area or they use keyboard bases for pinpointing the exact location where the
information lies (Mango, 2015). As a result, many of the students do not succeed in studying
the expected content of the study.
3.5. Recommendation.
The application of the present thesis statement has manifold implications in the real
life setting which has been considered important for the purpose of making change
recommendations or to reconstruct the content of the curriculum. The usage of the digital
devices in the classroom has made the skills of the individual necessary to consider (Ally &
Prieto-Blázquez, 2014). There are few students who feel that it is better to learn using the
digital devices. On the other hand, there are other group of students who genuinely feel that it
is beneficial to learn from the text books. Therefore, it can be said that it is obvious that not
every students will be benefitted equally studying from the same manner. Thus, it will not be
a wise decision to make the use of digital devise a mandatory rule for the students in the
classroom.

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3.5.1. Non mandatory use of digital devices.
It also needs to be remembered that here several hazardous effects of using digital
devices in the classroom. A number of researches have been conducted and according to the
research it has been found that the students who all tend to use digital devices in the
classroom are found to make themselves dissociate from the class after a certain period of
time (Aaron & Lipton, 2018; McCoy, 2016). There have been reports that the students
sometime pretend to use the digital devices for studying but in reality they use them for
entertainment purposes like for playing games or browsing sites of social media (Amry,
2014). Similarly, there have been few studies which show that the students who study in the
digitised classroom are found to be limited due to the presence of many distracting factors.
The use of the ICT in the classroom indicates that the resources should be designed keeping
in mind about the VARK (Visual Auditory Reading and Kinaesthetic) which is a style of
learning in mind. According to Prithishkumar & Michael, there should also be availibilty of a
wide range of content which include audio or visual content of learning (Lam & Tong, 2012).
It is needed to ensured that the students are not engaging themselves in the distractions like
watching videos and movies or listening to music which are not related to the course and are
using the devices properly (Flanigan & Babchuk, 2015; Amry, 2014). Thus, from this
understanding it can be concluded that the use of digital devices in the classroom should not
be made a mandatory practise.
3.5.2. Physical and mental health intervention.
The use of the digital devices for a longer period of times will bring some detrimental
effects on the students, physically and mentally (Kuznekoff & Titsworth, 2013). According to
researches it has been found that there are a large number of students who suffer from visual

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Use of Digital Devices in University
and hearing issues for using laptops and tablets. Furthermore, there are also reports of cases
which complain about headache and migraine. These factors also give rise to other associated
health issues like stress as well as lack of sleep (Barnes & Hay, 2013) and due to which the
mental health of the students are also getting affected in a significant number of ways. Thus,
these are the important factors which are also to be considered before making any
modifications for making an improvement in the situation of the classroom.
In order to point out to the students about the negative impacts of using the digital
devices must be shown to the student with the help of intervention programs which will
create a positive impact on them. Therefore, this needs to be done using three steps or phases.
The three phases are- the impact on the physical health, the impact on the mental health
which are needed to be identified primarily, the impacts on the educational outcome which is
needed to be elicited.
The intervention program can take help from the health practitioners and also from
the counsellors after the completion of the primary stages. They can help in customising and
developing the plans and objectives which will help in reducing the use of digital devices in
the classroom and make the students to rely more on the primary textbooks for their study
and the use of the digital devices will only limit to laptops, tablets and smartphones. It should
also be made clear by the intervention programs that these devices will be used only for the
purpose of additional research and other extra materials.
The intervention program should also focus on addressing the connection with the
curriculum and the students must be provided with an understanding that the more they will
be engaged with the digital devices heir learning outcomes will be reduced.

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3.5.3. Use of network monitoring and amending classroom policies.
Another important step is the network monitoring which will prevent the overuse
along with the misuse of the smartphones and any other gadgets in the class. The network
monitoring is used so that the institute can prevent their WiFi network from using the social
media sites and other entertainment sites. These sites will be remained out of access for the
students when they will using the network of the institution.
At the same time, the policies of the existing classrooms should be amended so that
the amount of time for the students to spend on their phones or laptops can be reduced. China
should focus in modernising the education industry with the application of IT technologies.
Investments should be made for the improvement of the education and remodel the design of
the curriculum as well as the structure of the organization. Therefore, this will help in the
technological upgrade of the education companies. Thus will help the students to meet their
desired and expected learning outcome.

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