Researchers are trying to bring practical insights to inform cellphone policy decisions at a time when at least 31 states and the District of Columbia require school districts to ban or restrict cellphones, according to an Education Week tally.
Many school cellphone policies focus on the part of the school day students can’t have their phones. But what do to with the phones? Smartphone storage is an important consideration for developing meaningful cellphone policies from the standpoint of human behavior, says Angela Duckworth, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania who is helping guide a study of the impact of cellphone policies.
Preliminary findings from a survey of 20,000 teachers: the most common storage requirement is a “no-show” policy. Students can keep their phones in their pockets or backpacks, but they must be out of sight.
Nearly half of schools in the survey sample have that type of policy.
More preliminary data: policies that require students to store their phones in pouches or lockers are linked to more focused classrooms, according to teachers, says Duckworth, as are bell-to-bell policies.
“In psychology, there is a principle that could be summarized as physical distance creates psychological distance,” Duckworth says. “When you are in the presence of a temptation, the closer it is to you, the more tempting it is.”
All-day cellphone bans are most common in elementary and middle school, researchers learned. One in four high school teachers reported that cellphones were banned throughout the entire school day, compared to three in four elementary and middle school teachers reporting their school have a bell-to-bell ban.
“One major argument behind cellphone bans is that it should lead to improved classroom environments,” says David Figlio, an economics professor at the University of Rochester. “We can’t measure the classroom environment, but we can at least measure whether or not kids seem to want to be there. What we see is a pretty reasonably substantial reduction in the rate of unexcused absences.”
“What is going to be important for school districts, states, [and] countries, introducing these cellphone bans would be to recognize that if you have a ban, there’s gonna be enforcement,” says Figlio.
“This could lead to deleterious outcomes that we don’t necessarily want. What can we do to either reduce the need for the enforcement or to be a bit more generous in the rollout of the policy?”
Education Week
