Text messaging has had an impact on students academically, by creating an easier way to cheat on exams. In December 2002, a dozen students were caught cheating on an accounting exam through the use of text messages on their mobile phones.[102] In December 2002, Hitotsubashi University in Japan failed 26 students for receiving e-mailed exam answers on their mobile phones.[103]
The number of students caught using mobile phones to cheat on exams has increased significantly in recent years. According to Okada (2005), most Japanese mobile phones can send and receive long text messages of between 250 and 3000 characters with graphics, video, audio, and Web links.[104] In England, 287 school and college students were excluded from exams in 2004 for using mobile phones during exams.[105] Some teachers and professors claim that advanced texting features can lead to students cheating on exams.[106]
It is now clear that students in high school and college classrooms are using their mobile phones to send and receive irrelevant texts during lectures at high rates. Further, published research has established that students who text during college lectures have impaired memories of the lecture material compared to students who do not.[107] For example, in one study, the number of irrelevant text messages sent and received during a lecture covering the topic of developmental psychology was related to students' memory of the lecture.
Patrick Abboud
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