Procedures and Manipulation
After students had been assigned to this study, they were contacted by email and provided with basic directions for participation. They were asked to sign up, through the research participation system, to attend one of six meeting times in order to participate in the study and receive course credit. To achieve maximum participation, follow-up reminder emails were sent. Each timeslot was scheduled to last no longer than one hour, and timeslots were scheduled for Monday through Thursday of the fifth week of the term. All study timeslots were scheduled for the early evening, and each timeslot was randomly assigned to one of the three conditions: control, low-distraction, or high-distraction.
All meeting sessions for the study occurred in a standard university classroom designed to accommodate approximately 30 people. Prior to participant arrival, an envelope was placed on each desk containing materials used in the study; each envelope was marked with a unique identification number. After questions had been answered and informed consent was obtained, students were shown a video lecture and instructed to take notes over the lecture using paper provided in the packets; they were instructed to take notes as they normally would in a typical class. Students were informed that at the end of the lecture they would be given a 3-min review period, during which they should review their notes as if they were studying for a test or quiz, and after this review they would take several learning assessments.
After receiving initial instructions from the researcher, students in groups randomly assigned as the control condition were instructed to put their mobile phones away and then started watching the video lecture. Those groups assigned to either the low- or high-distraction conditions had two additional steps. First, students were instructed to take out their mobile phone capable of accessing the Internet and to open their mobile web browser to a specific URL shown on the projection screen. The webpage to which they were directed provided a link to an online survey that was used to simulate texting/posting activity. The first question of the survey asked students to input the unique code found on their envelope. After this was completed, the survey proceeded to the second page that instructed students to wait while others entered their identification code. After everyone in the timeslot had arrived at this landing page, the researcher instructed the students to hit “Continue” and that they would automatically be presented with simulated texts/posts following a predetermined schedule. For instance, one text/post asked participants, “What is your favorite restaurant for dinner?” and another asked participants to “Comment on this photo (the simulated text/post showed an actual photo).” Participants were instructed to respond to the texts/post presented to them by the survey. Aside from language describing the simulated communication as a text or a post, the simulated texts/posts were rather similar in nature. Of course, students were instructed to listen to the lecture and take notes as this was occurring.