An Examination of Cyberloafing Behaviors in Classrooms from Students’ Perspectives

Abstract

Cyberloafing behaviors in education refer to students’ behaviors of using technology (e.g., smartphones, laptops, and the Internet) for non-academic purposes during classes. Although there exist many studies on employees’ cyberloafing tendency/behaviors, such studies are pretty limited in the field of education. Thus, the main goal of the current study is to investigate undergraduate students’ cyberloafing behaviors in terms of instructor and student-related issues. In this qualitative study, the participants consisted of 228 undergraduate students in a state university. The participants were provided with open ended questions related to their possible cyberloafing behaviors. Content analysis was used for data analysis. The results were categorized under four themes: teacher related cyberloafing behaviors, suggestions for minimizing teacher-related cyberloafing behaviors, student related cyberloafing behaviors, suggestions for minimizing student-related cyberloafing behaviors. The results show instructors’ communication styles and their teaching preferences lead students to cyberloafing behaviors. Furthermore, students’ personal issues and lack of motivation resulted in misbehavior.