Investigating the relationship between thinking style and personal electronic device use and its implications for academic performance

This article examines the relationship between students’ thinking style and the level of their use of personal electronic devices (PEDs). Also investigated are the educational connotations of PED use and the moderating effect of abstract/concrete reasoning on the relationship between PED use and academic performance. To these ends, 506 Taiwanese college students were surveyed. The results point to the significance of concrete reasoning for the prevalence of non-educational PED use, while thinking style is not statistically useful in explaining educational use of PEDs. We also find that thinking style interacts with educational PED use in determining academic performance. As a whole, using PEDs can be academically beneficial or harmful for students depending on whether they use PEDs for educational or non-educational purposes. 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Personal electronic devices (PEDs) are an essential part of modern life. Since the introduction of mobile and small-size personal devices in the late 2000s, there has been a clear trend among people toward employing them as their principal communication, information-searching, and entertainment devices. Recent statistics show over 95% of young adults in North America and industrialized Asian countries have a mobile phone, and 30% of these users describe their phone as a device they cannot live without (Pew Research Center, 2014). Similarly, the ratio of individuals using personal portable computers for work and Internet has increased to almost 75% over the last decade. In this context, researchers have devoted considerable attention to the implication of widespread PED use among students for their academic performance (Barak, Lipson, & Lerman, 2006; Chen & Peng, 2008; Harman & Sato, 2011; Trimmel & Bachmann, 2004). Far less attention, however, has been paid to why some students use PEDs more frequently and extensively than do others. The present study attempts to fill this research void by drawing upon a key thinking-style theory and applying it to the issue of students’ use of PEDs and its academic connotation. In our view, potential yet untested factors when explaining the variance of PED use among students are abstract and concrete reasoning. Building on this perspective, we present thinking style here as not only having a direct linkage with the extent to which students use PEDs but also showing its interaction with PED use in determining academic performance. We also examine the direct relationship between PED use and academic performance. 1. Thinking style and PED use When scholars focus on how people perceive and understand objects and events, they find it useful to distinguish abstract from concrete reasoning, even though they may represent the opposite poles of one cognitive spectrum (Ormrod, 2011). Abstract reasoning pertains to the cognitive capability of analyzing information, uncovering patterns and relationships, grasping multiple meanings, solving problems on a complex level, and formulating theories about the nature of events and ideas. It is contrasted with concrete reasoning, which centers on specific facts, physical objects, and literal definitions. Concrete thinkers consider objects, events, or ideas on the surface level rather than perceiving them as representations of more general concepts or phenomena. On the other hand, some personality traits such as emotional volatility, extraversion, extra-curiosity, and being highly sociable are reportedly conducive to problematic PED use including Internet addiction and compulsive online behavior (Çelik, Atak, & Bas al, 2012; Van der Aa et al., 2009; Yu, Kim, & Hay, 2013). Those having such psychological predilections tend to spend excessive numbers of hours on PEDs and computers. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.05.042 0747-5632/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author at: Department of School Psychology and Counseling, School of Education, La Sierra University, 4500 Riverwalk Parkway, Riverside, CA