Abstract
This study investigated the effects of smartphone use on the perceived academic performance of elementary school students. Following the derivation of four hypotheses from the literature, descriptive analysis, t testing, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), Pearson correlation analysis, and one-way multivariate ANOVA (MANOVA) were performed to characterize the relationship between smartphone behavior and academic performance with regard to learning effectiveness. All coefficients were positive and significant, supporting all four hypotheses. We also used structural equation modeling (SEM) to determine whether smartphone behavior is a mediator of academic performance. The MANOVA results revealed that the students in the high smartphone use group academically outperformed those in the low smartphone use group. The results indicate that smartphone use constitutes a potential inequality in learning opportunities among elementary school students. Finally, in a discussion of whether smartphone behavior is a mediator of academic performance, it is proved that smartphone behavior is the mediating variable impacting academic performance. Fewer smartphone access opportunities may adversely affect learning effectiveness and academic performance. Elementary school teachers must be aware of this issue, especially during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The findings serve as a reference for policymakers and educators on how smartphone use in learning activities affects academic performance.
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The authors would like to express their gratitude to the school participants in the study.
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The work done for this study was financially supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan under project No. MOST 109–2511-H-017–005.
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Kung and Wang conceived of the presented idea. Kung, Wang and Hsieh developed the theory and performed the computations. Kung and Hsieh verified the analytical methods. Wang encouraged Kung and Hsieh to verify the numerical checklist and supervised the findings of this work. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript.
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Appendix 1 Factor analysis results
Appendix 1 Factor analysis results
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Wang, J.C., Hsieh, CY. & Kung, SH. The impact of smartphone use on learning effectiveness: A case study of primary school students. Educ Inf Technol 28, 6287–6320 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-11430-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-11430-9