The Relationship Between Use of Cell-Phone with Academic achievement in female Students

Transcription

1 : The Relationship Between Use of Cell-Phone with Academic achievement in female Students 1 Roghaye Barzegar Noshahr, 2 Behnam Talebi, 3 Mohammad Mojallal 1,3 Ajabshir Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ajabshir, Iran 2 Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran Abstract This study investigated the relationship between use of cell phone and academic achievements in feamale Students, in middle school feamale in district 3 of Tabriz city in the school year of This research is of applied type, and the research method is descriptive. To do this study, a sample size of 467 students was selected through stratified random sampling. The researcher questionnaire about cell- phone use was used to collect data. To determine the relationship between the cell- phone use and academic achievement, Pearson s correlation coefficient was used. The results of the analysis of data showed that there is a significant and poor negative relationship between cell- phone use and academic achievement of students. Keywords: Cell-Phone, Academic Achievement, Students 1. Introduction Nowadays, cell- phone has an important part, as a new form of communication technologies, in the individual and social life of human and is an integral part of everyday events so that it can be claimed that for many people living without it is not possible or, at least, is not desirable. Penetration of mobile applications in the dignity of life is a universal phenomenon and, in our society, despite the frivolity of using it has subsided, its acceptance has reached a point that its serious harms and disregards of this modern technology are hidden and ignored; disadvantages that in various social, cultural, behavioral, psychological, medical, legal, criminal, etc, cause some damages, and, with a little care and subtlety, one can realize the extent of its undesirable impact (Sadeghi, 2009). Adulthood is considered as one of the most important and crucial periods in the growth and evolution process of man; so, this period is believed to be a period of crisis, storm, stress, regeneration, identity seeking, and like that (Hosseini, 2003). The thing that adds to the problem of teen nurturing is moral damages that is, due to special social and cultural conditions, widespread, and made human societies, especially the industrialized countries, face with major difficulties (Mohammadi, 2006). Schools and educational environments are the main focus of the mental health experts since these environments deal with the age groups that are identified as sensitive. Additionally, elementary, middle school, and high school ages are known as the ages that are the foundations of personality in adulthood (Adabi, 2009). Using a cell- phone eliminates the need of a person when he is in transition from primary to secondary level, i.e. between the ages of 12 to 13 (Ling and Helmersen, 2000). cell- phones, in spite of creating an autonomous individual privacy, have made One of the most serious problems associating with the virtual space is the formation of a permanent addiction to use it; reduction physical activity and total disregard to personal safety, avoiding major life activities in order to spend more time on the network, changing sleep patterns, decreasing socialization, neglecting of family and friends, not wanting to spend a long time without cell phone are among the most important signs of this type of addiction (Ameli, 2006). The statistics gained from among students with high academic abilities shows similar percentage of the ownership and use of cell- phones even with higher rates of ownership. Almost 3.2 percent of students aged

2 12 years have a cell- phone and the figure jumps to90 percent among students aged years (Wallace Patrick, 2011). Several factors such as economic, social, individual, family and educational factors are effective in the academic achievement, but, unfortunately, it is not being paid attention as such. The most important issue is that there are several hidden factors which, indirectly, affect on the academic success or lack of success of individuals. Factors such as the job of parents, the economic status of the family, test anxiety, motivation and interest, individual talent and ability, etc. are effective on the academic achievement (Pasha Sharifi, 2006; Alborzi and Seif, 2002). The problems that may occur for the students, as the talent and intelligent group in the society, because of using it may be weak academic performance, getting suspended, and, as a result, being dismissed (Dibajnia, 2005). The results of the research by Hassanzadeh and colleagues (2010), in their research on the relationship between the extreme use of technology and addiction to the Internet and SMS and the educational and mental condition of students showed that there is no significant relationship between to variables of extreme use of SMS and academic achivment. The rate of extreme use of SMS in feamales is more than boys. In this case, they believed cultural and family issues to be causative and suggest that, in the schools, paying attention to students and their activities and focus and competition of schools on scores and continuous persistence of parents and trainers are something which are quite clear in Iran, and, especially, students and families emphasize on exams and nights before examined. Cell phone is an information and communication technology which, for many students, has become into a vital tool that may potentially affect the academic performance of students. A Management Coordination Agency (MCA), in examining the tendency of young people in Japan, studied the attitudes and perceptions of Japanese students to their cell phones, since this study was intended to see if the cell phone impact on academic performance, the results showed that 68 percentage of students who had poor grades owned a cell phone (Auckerman, 2001). Research findings show that the use of high technology with high recreational purposes associates with low academic performance. Results show there is a significant relationship between education drop and dependence to cell phone; it means that as the use of cell phone increases, the education drop of student s increases, too Lavin, Barrows, and Kubey (2001). In a study by Chen Yi Fan (2006) conducted in Taiwan on 166 students showed that users who used their cellphone s less, the use of cell- phone had negative effects on their academic and learning performance; while, users who used cell phone more have reported that the use of cell phone has a negative impact on their academic performance. In the United States (Chen, 2005), and also in Taiwan, users who frequently used cell- phone s reported that continuous use of cell- phone s affect their learning and academic performance. Taiwanese results showed that there is a significant positive relationship between both self-report use of cell phones and self-report of cell phone addiction with the statement that "by using cell phone, I feel, cell phone stops my studying. These findings are consistent with the findings of Kubey and colleagues (2001), but it is not consistent with the findings of Southwick (2002). Interestingly, in these self-reports, among the various cell- phone s, heavy use of cell phones of GPAs have the most applications. According to what has been stated, recognizing the different applications of cell phones and examining the relationship between the use of cell phone and academic achievement of teenager students is one of the issues that in the present society should be discussed by researchers. The necessity of the present study is done regarding the question what relationship does exist between the use of cell phone and academic achievement of female students? And, according to this question, the following hypothesis is proposed: $ There is a significant relationship between the use of cell- phone and academic achievement of female students. 2. Research Methodology According to the goal, this research is applied, and, in terms of data collection, it is description-correlation. The population of the study consists of all middle school feamale in district 3 of Tabriz city in the school year of 425

3 In this study, according to the number of individuals studied, sample size was 467 individuals. Sampling method used in this study is stratified random, according to the type of education grade The Measurement Instrument To measure the variable of cell- phone usage and academic achievement, the researcher questionnaire was used. The questionnaire of the use of cell phones had 9 questions, and different possible uses of the cell phone were based on afive-choice option of Likert scale (verylow, low, average, high, and veryhigh).reliability coefficient questionnaire of the use of cell phone based on Cronbach's alpha was 0/807 which shows high reliability of the questionnaire. To assess academic achievement of students, the average grades of the first semester of the current year and prior academic subjects were considered as academic achievement scale. 3. Research findings 3.1. Descriptive statistics relating to having the cell phone according to Education Level Second year at guidance school Third year at guidance school total Table 1- Descriptive statistics having cell- phone yes no Total Abundance % Education Level 66.2% 33.8% 100.0% % having the cell phone 43.9% 49.3% 45.6% % total 30.2% 15.4% 45.6% Abundance % Education Level 70.8% 29.2% 100.0% % having the cell phone 55.8% 50.7% 54.2% % total 38.3% 15.8% 54.2% Abundance % Education Level 68.7% 31.3% 100.0% % having the cell phone 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% % total 68.7% 31.3% 100.0% The table above shows that the total number of students in this study who are using cell- phone s are 467 people out of whom 213 individuals, 45/6 percent in second grade of elementary school, and 253 people, 54/2 percent in the third grade of middle school. Also, of all the students using cell- phone s 321 people (68/7 percent) owned cell phone that 30/2 percent of them were in second grade of middle school, and 38/3 percent of them were in the third grade of middle school, and 146 (31/3 percent) had no cell- phone, out of whom 15/4 percent were studying in the second grade of middle school and 15/8 percent in the third grade of middle school Descriptive statistics relating to having the cell phone according to Academic achievement Table 2-Table of descriptive statistics of having cell- phone according to academic achievement % Abundance excellent academic moderate achievement poor total 426

4 In this study, according to the average of two-semester, their academic achievements were studied. The average 17 or above was considered a great achievement. The averages between 15 to 17 were considered moderate academic achievement, and the average less than15 was considered poor. According to data from the 467 students surveyed, 389 people with an average higher than 17 had higher academic achievement (83/3 percent), 63 people had moderate academic achievement (13/5 percent) and 15 individuals had low academic achievement (3/2 percent). 4.Data Analysis To investigate the relationship between cell phone use and academic achievement, the Pearson correlation test was used. Table 3-Pearson s Correlation Table of mobile use and academic achievement academic Pearson correlation achievement use of cell- phone ** Sig. (2-tailed).007 N 462 The investigation of the relationship between cell phone use and academic achievement of students using the Pearson correlation coefficient indicates that the significance level is less than 0.05 ( sig=0/007) which indicates the correlation coefficient is significant. (p<0.007 and n= 462, r= ) correlation coefficient indicates a negative and significant correlation between phone use and academic achievement. It means as the use of cellphone s is lower, academic achievement is higher. 5. Discussion and conclusions The overall objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between cell phone use and academic achievement of students. The results showed that there is a weak negative and significant correlation relationship between cell phone use and academic achievement of students. It means as the use of cell- phone s is lower, the academic achievement gets higher. The obtained results, being in line with those results of Hassanzadeh and colleagues (2010), showed that there is no significant relationship between two variables of extreme usage of SMS and academic achievement of students. In the argument for this hypothesis it can be said that maybe students by devoting their time to entertain and amuse their mind with a cell phone stops concentrating on their lessons, consequently, their academic achievements get lower; but, because this relation is weak, it is likely that factors such as cultural and family issues and paying attention to the affairs of students and their families, especially the emphasis of students and families on the time of exams and exam night caused that using cell phone does not have much effect on the final score of the students in this study; so, doing a few more researches on the status of student during the school year and its relationship with cell phone use is necessary. Reference 1. Ameli, S. S. R., (2006), New Individualism and Cell Phone: Individualism, identity, and Media. June Adabi, R. (2009), Examining the Relationship between Mental Health and Identity Status in the early and mid-teen, MA Thesis, Clinical Psychology, Oloum Behzisti and Tavanbakhshi University. 427

5 3. Alborzi, Shahla and Diba Seif, (2002), Studying the Relationship between Motivational Belisfs, Learning Strategies, and some Population Factors with Academic achivment of a group of Humanities Students in Statistics, Humanities and Social Science Magazine of Shiraz University, 19 th period, 37, winter, pp Auckerman, W. (2001, January 2). Survey shows cell phone secrets of Japanese youth. Internetnews.com. Retrieved May 27, 2006 from 5. Campbell, Marilyn (2005). The impact of the cell- phone on young people's social life.paper presented to the Social Change in the 21st Century Conference, Centre for Social Change Research, Queensland University of Technology, 28 October. 6. Chen, Y.-F., & Lever, K. M. (2005, April). Relationships among cell- phone s, social networks, and academic achievement: A comparison of US and Taiwanese college students. Paper presented at the meeting of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Conference. Budapest, Hungary. 7. Chen, Y.-F. (2006, July). Social Phenomena of cell- phone Use: An Exploratory Study in Taiwanese College Students. Information Society (11). pages , Dibajnia, Prvin, (2005), A Comparative Study of the Self-thinking of the Freshmen and Senior Students of Rehabilitation Faculty of Shahid Beheshti University, Tarbiat Modarres University, The Second Students Mental Health National Seminar 9. Hassanzadeh, Ramezan, Mohammad Salehi, and Alireza Rezae, (2010), The Relationship between the Extreme Use of Technology, Addiction to the Internet, and SMS, and the Educational and Mental Status of Students, Information and Communication Technology in Education, Year 1 st, Fall 2010, N Hosseini SH. Et al. (2003), Measuring the mental health of students in High school in Sari. Journals of Mental Health, 6 (19-20): Kubey, R. W., Lavin, M. J., and Barrows, J. R. (2001). Internet use and collegiate academic performance decrements: Early findings. Journal of Communication(2)51. pp Ling, R., & Helmersen, P. (2000). It must be necessary, it has to cover a need: The adoption of mobile telephony among pre-adolescents and adolescents. Paper presented at the Social Consequences of Mobile Telephony, Oslo, Norway 13. Mohammadi, S., (2006). The Necessity of Learning Life Skills for Kids and Teenagers, Shaparak Newspaper, Number 1016, 3 January 2006, p Pasha Sharifi, Hassan, (2006), Measuring the Internal and External Motivation of the Progress and Attitude of Students in different Educational Sections to Educational Issues, and the role of these Variables in the Explanation of their Academic achivment, Educational Innovation Journal, N. 18, Year 5, winter, pp Southwick, S. L. (2002). Internet use, academic performance,and social involvement in middle school age children. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY. [UMI: ] 16. Wallace, Patricia.A (2011). On the leading edge: Patterns of technology use, attitudes, and perceptions among high ability students.johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth. Unpublished data. 17. Wallace Patricia.B (2011). M-Learning: Promises, Perils, and Challenges for K-12 Education. Professional Development. New Horizons. Journals. Winter