Running head: TEXTINGS EFFECTS ON STUDENT WORK

Textings Effects on Student Work

Elisea Melendez
Nevada State College
April 20, 2015

Introduction
LOL this is my paper r u excited 2 read it? Using this type of wording in your papers is
defiantly not an appropriate way to start an academic paper. For a lot of young adults, texting is
the primary method of communication, and it could be becoming a problem for their academic
work. One article states, With the ever increasing use of text messaging among students,
especially teenagers, there has been a growing concern among educators, parents, researchers
and general public (Aziz, 2013, p.12884). According to Lenhart, Arafeh, and Smith (2008),
They are concerned that the quality of writing by young Americans is being degraded by their
electronic communication, with its carefree spelling, lax punctuation and grammar, and its
acronym shortcuts. (p.1) This concern raises the question: is texting affecting students literary
work in school?
Literature Review

TEXTINGS EFFECTS ON STUDENT WORK

Students these days are constantly typing away on their cell phones. I have seen them
typing at home, on their way to class, in class, during their homework, and almost any chance
they get. Texting is starting to become a problem in classrooms. A survey by the Pew Internet &
American Life Project found that Nearly two-thirds of teens (64%) say they incorporate some
informal styles from their text-based communications into their writing at school (Lenhart,
Arafeh, & Smith, 2008, p.2) Extant literature on texting and student writing has found two
themes. First, high school and college teachers are starting to see the effects of texting in students
writing. Texting is also starting to become a time consuming hobby.
When completing a text message, the goal is to get the text done as fast as possible. This
is another problem, while completing school work students will tend to rush through it. Students
are picking up an addiction to social media and texting. In an article related to this subject it
states:
This reliance on technology and social interaction carries over into student study habits.
Nearly two-thirds (62%) of students surveyed by the Pew Research Project reported
studying for classes no more than seven hours per week, while only 14% reported
studying 12 or more hours per week. Students focus more on updating their Facebook
status than downloading their homework assignments, which profoundly impacts their
collegiate experience. (Hanson, Drumheller, Mallard, McKee, & Schlegel, 2010, p. #)
This not only shows less commitment to their work. This also shows how they rush though
studying and school work to get back on their phones to text and connect to social media.
When it comes to texting, the goal is to abbreviate as much as possible. Aziz (2013)
states, SMS language is a term for the abbreviations and rebus-like slang most commonly used
due to the essential pithiness of mobile phone text messaging etiquette (p.12884). If someone is
using this slang and abbreviations on a daily basis the mind is going to adapt to it. With this

TEXTINGS EFFECTS ON STUDENT WORK

being said, it will soon become an everyday thing. Students will be adding these into their
academic papers.
When students are replying in text form, they tend not to be concerned about their
grammar. Poor grammar tends to affect their papers, and they tend to add slang into their papers.
Aziz (2013) did a survey and found that students knew texting was affecting their schoolwork.
Here are the results:
The findings of questionnaires meant for students reveal that a great majority of them
i.e., 72% thinks their writing is affected by SMS language and 28% think its not. While
the same question answered by 15 educators teaching English at the same level in the
same university reveal that 100% of them opine that their students academic writing is
affected by SMS language. (p.12887)
This shows that texting is becoming a problem. It is outstanding to see that 28% of the students
believe that texting is not affecting their work. This means that 72% of students have
experienced the outcome of using slang too much in their text messages.
Professors and teachers are noticing how bad this is getting day by day. Verheijen (2013)
stated:
Text and instant messaging are negatively affecting students writing quality on a daily
basis, as they bring their abbreviated language into the classroom. As a result of their
electronic chatting, kids are making countless syntax, subject-verb agreement and
spelling mistakes in writing assignments. [M]any teachers believed that students wide
use of text speak was a key factor in their students negative performance. [T]ext
speak is a problem. (Verheijen, 2013, p.585)
This is an example that shows texting is not helping with students grammar and punctuation.
There have been a lot of different experiments conducted to try and provide the information to
answer my question. Texting does have an effect on students schoolwork. If it is negative affect

TEXTINGS EFFECTS ON STUDENT WORK

or not this is based on the person and their ability to multi task and separate social life to
academic life.
Methods
In my study I sent out an email to students in my five of classes at Nevada State College.
In the email I created a survey that asked seven different questions. Six of them were multiple
choice and one had a response box.
Question one asked what gender they were. I felt this was needed so I could see if male
and females had a trend of different views. I also felt this question was necessary so I could have
the different views on male and female. Question two asked what their ethnicity was. This was
mainly just to get a view on the different ethnicities I was able to receive on my survey. I wanted
these results to show the different varieties of people I was able to get to participate. Question
three asked what the participants age was. This was extremely important so I could compare the
views of adults and younger adults. In my research on what other people have found out, there
were a variety of different opinions on this topic due to age. Next I asked what the greatest
amount of education they completed was. This was a good question to ask because if they did not
have a too much education they would not have really had to experience the effects of texting on
there work.
Question five asked, around how many texts do you text in one day? This question was
critical so I could see around how much texting was a part of there life. I asked around how
much because I wanted them to round it. This made it easier to put the different people in
different categories. Question six asked whether or not they use accurate grammar in their text
messages or not. This was important so I would be able to see if they were going to be a good
example for my research. Question seven was a written response question, which asked if they
believed texting could affect students writing in school. I created this question as a written

TEXTINGS EFFECTS ON STUDENT WORK

response because I really wanted to go in depth of peoples views on this topic. This question
was the most important question in my research.
Findings
My finding for question one was based on gender. A total of 51 participants answered this
questions. 78.43% were female and 21.57% were male.

Question two was based on ethnicity. A total of 51 participants answered this

question. 5.88% American, 7.84% Asian or Pacific Islander, 23.53% black or African American,
31.37 Hispanic or Latino. 43.14 white/Caucasian, and 1% preferred not to answer.

TEXTINGS EFFECTS ON STUDENT WORK

Here were my results for age:

TEXTINGS EFFECTS ON STUDENT WORK

Next was how much education they have accomplished.

Then I asked a question about how much they use proper grammar while texting.

TEXTINGS EFFECTS ON STUDENT WORK

After this I asked how many text messages they send in one day.

Last I asked a written response question that asked their opinion on if texting effects academic
writing. 74% said yes, 19% no, 5% said maybe, and 2% preferred not to answer.

TEXTINGS EFFECTS ON STUDENT WORK

Reference
Aziz, S., Shamim, M., Aziz, M. F., & Avais, P. (2013). The Impact of Texting/SMS Language
on Academic Writing of Students-What do we need to panic about?. Elixir Linguistics
and Translation.
Hanson, T. L., Drumheller, K., Mallard, J., McKee, C., & Schlegel, P. (2010). Cell phones, text
messaging, and Facebook: Competing time demands of today's college students. College
teaching, 59(1), 23-30.
Lenhart, A., Arafeh, S., & Smith, A. (2008). Writing, technology and teens. Pew Internet
& American Life Project.
Lieke Verheijen (2013) The Effects of Text Messaging and Instant Messaging on Literacy,
English Studies

Reflection

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10

I believe that overall I did I decent job on this paper. I organized it well and I believe that
I made it clear and understandable. I tried my best to not make the reader lost. I could have given
myself a lot more time than I did. Overall this paper was a good experience and I learned a lot
from this paper. Completing my research and experiment was extremely confusing and very
difficult. I myself was having a hard time figure out how to explain my results in a way that
people would understand. I hope you are able to understand and learn from my research.