October 2018: Student Liaison Report

High school students with school-issued devices are more likely to email their teachers with questions, take notes in class and collaborate with their classmates, among other tasks, according to results of a survey by the Speak Up Research Project for Digital Learning.

The study found more than twice as many principals in 2017 said students in their schools were assigned some type of mobile device, like a laptop or tablet, than in 2015, according to an article written by Tara Garcia Mathewson for The Hechinger Report.

Sixty percent of principals who responded to the survey said they assign these devices, compared with 27% two years earlier. The Speak Up survey is a national initiative of Project Tomorrow, an education-focused nonprofit.

The survey reached almost 341,000 students in 2017, and it found some distinct differences in what students with and without mobile devices said they did in school.

High schoolers assigned a laptop or a Chromebook also were more likely to do internet research, create documents to share, check their grades and get reminders about tests or homework due dates.

Among high school students assigned these devices, 60% said they had emailed their teachers with questions. That’s compared to 42% among students without an assigned device.

In focus groups, students explained that emailing their teachers was somewhat of an anxiety release, Speak Up CEO Dr. Julie A. Evans said.

Evans also is the author of a brief about the findings. “It isn’t as if they need the teacher to respond to them in that moment,” Evans said. “It’s more that they want to share the problem with someone.”

And when they go to class the next day, they can arrive knowing their teacher already is aware of the problem. Most high schoolers have a way to send an email from home, whether it’s from a smartphone or a family computer. But students with assigned devices from their schools are more likely to actually draft those emails and hit send.