Academic Media Multitasking among 8th Grade Students: An International Perspective

• In Event: Teaching and Learning of STEM and ICT in the Digital Age: Insights from International Assessments

Proposal

The international computer and information literacy study (ICILS) investigates students’ digital literacy achievement and the contexts in which students’ digital literacy learning takes place, including aspects of students’ engagement with technology (Fraillon, 2024). As digital device use continues to increase, and as digital devices can simultaneously run increasingly complex applications, academic media multitasking has emerged as a concept of increasing research interest (Hasan & Khan, 2020). Academic media multitasking refers to the ‘simultaneous engagement in academic tasks (such as studying, reading or completing assignments) and media related activities (such as watching TV, browsing the internet or using social media)’ (Rožman, Holtmann, Meinck, 2024, p. 192). It has evolved from the construct media multitasking, first posited by Armstrong and Greenberg (1990) with a large increase of related-research publications emerging in the last decade (Beuckels, Hudders & Cauberghe, 2021). A substantial number of studies has shown that multitasking with digital devices, including laptops and mobile phones, is negatively associated with students’ academic performance (May and Elder, 2018; Van Der Schuur, Baumgartner, Sumter & Valkenburg, 2015). Media multitasking is positively associated with multitasking self-efficacy (Sanbonmatsu et al., 2013) , girls engage in more multitasking activities associated with listening to music and communicating than boys (Cotten, Shank & Anderson, 2014), and with the less purposeful use of ICT (Judd & Kennedy, 2011). It has also been suggested that academic media-multitasking is related to negative feelings associated with stress and difficulties with time-management (Abi-Jaboude et al., 2020), lower emotional well-being and more sleep problems (Van Der Schuur, Baumgartner, Sumter & Valkenburg, 2015).

Van der Schuur, Baumgartner, Sumter & Valkenburg (2015) highlight two important shortcomings of the existing literature on the topic: the varying definition of the construct that compromises the comparability of results across studies, and inclusion of unrepresentative samples. With this study we aim to address these shortcomings by providing results on academic-media multitasking from an international perspective. In particular, we investigate the role of ICT use, self-efficacy, CIL literacy, parental limit on media use, social background, and gender on academic-media multitasking across multiple countries that participated in ICILS 2023.

ICILS 2023 collected data from representative samples of more than 130,000 grade 8 (or equivalent) students across 34 countries and one sub-national education system. In this study, we address the research question, how do student-level factors contribute to the extent of students’ academic media multitasking behavior.

Academic-media multitasking was introduced in the most recent cycle of ICILS, which was conducted in 2023. Students were asked to report on how often, outside of school, they engaged in a set of six social media, communication and media engagement activities unrelated to their schoolwork, at the same time as they were doing their schoolwork. These activities included text chat with others, use of social media, check social media, use the internet to find information, watch videos, and listen to music. Data from the responses to these six statements were used to create the student academic media multitasking scale. As reported in the ICILS 2023 international report, considerable variation was found in the mean scale scores across countries, indicating a varying extent of academic-media multitasking engagement of students. In addition, the relationship between academic-media multitasking and CIL achievement was found to be negative in 10 countries and positive in 11 countries (Rožman, Holtmann, Meinck, 2024, p. 192-193).

To shed more light on the results presented in the international report, we conducted additional analyses. In this study, we completed regression analyses within each country, using academic media multitasking as outcome variable of interest, and the following predictors: students’ computer and information literacy (CIL) achievement, gender, socioeconomic status, ICT self-efficacy regarding the use of general applications, out of school ICT use and parental limits on screen time. We included countries that had available data on all selected variables and had met the ICILS 2023 sample participation requirements. Analyses were conducted using the IEA IDB Analyzer (IEA, 2025) to ensure that the derived parameter estimates accounted for the complex sampling and assessment design used in the study (Fraillon et al., 2025).

The predictor variables explain between 8-16% of the variation in the academic media multitasking scale across countries. We found a weak negative relationship between CIL achievement and academic-media multitasking in more than half of the countries, no significant relationship in about a third of the countries and weak positive coefficient in the remaining countries. The strongest predictors of academic media multitasking were students’ ICT use and students’ general self-efficacy. The standardized coefficients ranged mostly between 0,1 and 0,2 across countries. Our results suggest that students that use ICT more frequently also engage more frequently in academic- media multitasking activities. Also, students with higher reported self-efficacy engage more often as well. Further, our results suggest an association between media multitasking activities and gender. Girls tend to engage more frequently in multitasking activities than boys across countries. Similarly, there appears to be an association between media multitasking activities and parental limits on students’ screen time. Compared to students whose parents limit their screen time, students with no screentime limits engage more often in media multitasking activities. Finally, in about half the countries there is a weak association showing slightly higher academic-media multitasking in students from lower socioceconimic bagkgrounds with no significant relationship in many countries as well.

With this paper, we contribute to the growing literature investigating academic-media multitasking. In particular, our major contribution to this literature is the international perspective that our empirical findings provide. With comparable results across countries, we can deepen our understanding of academic media multitasking and its correlates. This topic has become increasingly relevant for policy, as information technology becomes ubiquitous in all facets of our life and policymakers grapple with issues associated with safe, healthy and appropriate use of ICT . Further research is needed to better understand the factors that contribute to academic-media multitasking and to the consequences of academic-media multitasking on the quality of students’ learning.

Authors

• Mojca Rožman

• Julian Fraillon