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Banning mobile phones in schools can improve students’ academic performance. This is how we know.
Author: Louis-Philippe Beland
Published: March 21, 2021, 8.49pm SAST
The effects of mobiles phones and other technology at school is a hotly debated topic in many count...
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Banning mobile phones in schools can improve students’ academic performance. This is how we
know.
Author: Louis-Philippe Beland
Published: March 21, 2021, 8.49pm SAST
The effects of mobiles phones and other technology at school is a hotly debated topic in many
countries. Some advocate for a complete ban to limit distractions, while others suggest using
technology as a teaching tool.
Kids in public South Australian primary schools started the school year without being allowed to bring
their mobile phones to class, unless they are needed for class activity. All students in public Western
Australian Victorian, and Tasmanian schools have a mobile phone ban in place since for all or some of
2020. New South Wales also banned mobile phones in public primary schools, with secondary schools
having the option to opt in, since the start of 2020.
Education departments have introduced the bans for various reasons including to improve academic
outcomes and decrease bullying.
Several recent papers point to positive impact of banning mobile phones at school on student
performance and other outcomes. Understanding the evidence is crucial for best policy.
In a 2015 paper, we used a method — called a difference-in-difference strategy — as well as student
data from England to investigate the effect of banning mobile phones on student performance. In this
method, we compared schools that have had phones removed to similar schools with no phone bans.
This allowed us to isolate the effect of mobiles phones on student performance from other factors that
could affect performance.
We found banning mobile phones at school leads to an increase in student performance. Our results
suggest that after schools banned mobile phones, test scores of students aged 16 increased by 6.4% of
a standard deviation. This is equivalent to adding five days to the school year or an additional hour a
week.
The effects were twice as large for low-achieving students, and we found no impact on high achieving
students.
Our results suggest low-performing students are more likely to be distracted by the presence of mobile
phones, while high performing students can focus with or without mobile phones.
The results of our paper suggest banning mobile phones has considerable benefits including a
reduction in the gap between high- and low- achieving students. This is substantial improvement for a
low-cost education policy.
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