Smartphones Are Lowering Students’ Grades

The ease of finding information on the internet is hurting students’ long-term retention and resulting in lower grades on exams, according to a Rutgers University–New Brunswick study.

The study, published in the journal Educational Psychology, found that smartphones seem to be the culprit. Students who received higher homework but lower exam scores — a half to a full letter grade lower on exams — were more likely to get their homework answers from the internet or another source rather than coming up with the answer themselves.

“When a student does homework by looking up the answers, they usually find the correct answer, resulting in a high score on the assignment,” said lead author Arnold Glass, a professor of psychology at Rutgers–New Brunswick’s School of Arts and Sciences. “However, when students do that, they rapidly forget both the question and answer. Consequently, they transform homework from what has been, until now, a useful exercise into a meaningless ritual that does not help in preparing for exams.”

Release date: 3 September 2020