Before you ban [electronic resource] : Law students' in-class laptop usage and academic performance
出版項
2016
說明
1 online resource (107 p.)
附註
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 77-11(E), Section: A
Adviser: Douglas J. Rush
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Saint Louis University, 2016
Includes bibliographical references
Legal educators are routinely banning students' laptops or wireless connectivity in law classes. Faculty assumes students are significantly off-task and in-class laptops are harmful to learning. Current research focuses almost exclusively on undergraduate students technology uses in- and out- of the classroom. Only a handful of studies objectively measure in-class laptop use and have found conflicting results about the impact of in-class laptops on learning or grades
For this study, first, second, and third year law students' in-class laptop use was tracked through sustained observations for an entire semester in five different law classes to determine the extent and nature of their off-task behavior. Additionally, this study examined whether students' accumulative time off-task predicted their final course grade after controlling for LSAT scores, Undergraduate GPAs, and other variables. The study further examines whether there are certain students off-task more than others and thus warrant special laptop policies. The findings from this study indicate that first, first-year law students (n = 52) were off-task 35% of the entire semester (SD = 22%). Second year students (n = 20) were off-task 42% of the entire semester (SD = 30%). And, finally, third year students (n = 23) were off-task for 28% of the entire semester (SD = 28%)
Second, no matter how the students were grouped and their respective off-task means compared, there was no statistically significant difference, with a statistical power to detect large effects, among the groupings based on the: (a) year of the student, (b) type of class, (c) time of the class, (d) seat location within the classroom, (e) gender, and (f) type of final exam
Lastly, the results indicate that a higher or lower amount of time off-task does not predict a higher or lower final course grade after controlling for LSAT, UGPA, class seat, and final exam type
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Mich. : ProQuest, 2017
