, 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