Smartphone Usage and Academic Performance of College Students

Abstract

There are varied views about smartphones weighed benefits and deemed
disadvantages to academic performance. The researcher would like to break in the
barrier between this prevalent yet still perplexing matter. This study described the
relationship of smartphone usage and academic performance of college students in
a faith-based institution. A descriptive correlational design was used to purposively
sampled 75 students. Of the 75, 51% have high grade point average and 47% were
using smartphone for an average of 5-8 hours per day. Students claimed they need
smartphones in classroom primarily to provide additional resources for research
work. However, they only use smartphone moderately to support their classroom
learning. This study ascertained that most of the teachers were distracted when
students use smartphones in the classroom. Nevertheless, the use of smartphone in
the classroom has neither negative nor positive impact to student’s learning. The
study revealed no significant relationship between extent of smartphone use to
support classroom learning and academic performance, between classroom learning
and academic performance and between impact of smartphone use in classroom to
learning and academic performance. However, this study showed a moderate,
negative, significant relationship between hours spent in using smartphone per day
and academic performance. This implies that the more time is spent in using
smartphone, the lower the academic performance. Therefore, there is a need to
regulate if not totally prohibit the use of smartphone in the classroom. Nonetheless,
students must be encouraged to minimize the total number of hours spent in
smartphone use per day.