Teachers warn of changes in pupils' attention and thinking when learning with screens

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Teachers predominantly have critical perceptions of digitalization in classrooms In the 2022/2023 academic year, according to figures from the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports, 92% of public secondary schools in Spain had virtual learning environments that students could access with devices such as computers and tablets. Digitalization opens up countless opportunities in the classroom, linked to the acquisition of the new skills and competencies needed to meet the challenges of the 21st century, but it also entails a rethinking of learning methods, which requires careful attention.

![Image by Ron Larch on Pexels]Image by Ron Larch on Pexels

A study organized by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) analysed this phenomenon, focusing on the experiences of teaching staff. It conducted interviews with thirty secondary school teachers in Catalonia to examine in depth how the intensive use of digital platforms is influencing students’ attention, reading, writing and autonomy.

The study, carried out by Jordi Solé and Raúl Navarro, researchers at the Laboratory of Social Education (LES) and members of the teaching staff in the UOC’s Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, together with Dr Marta Venceslao Pueyo, from the University of Barcelona, wass presented in the open-access article Learning with screens? Teachers’ voices on the effects of platformization in secondary education. The results reveal largely critical perceptions and point to profound transformations in learning processes.

Evaluating the impact of digital technology on secondary education
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“The main motivation for conducting this study was to critically rethink what learning with screens means in secondary education today,” said co-author Raúl Navarro. “We observed that digitalization has been implemented at an accelerated pace, driven by institutional policies and pressure from the technology sector, but without sufficiently considering its real effects on learning. We also found that the experience of teachers, despite being central to these processes, is often sidelined in the public debate, which is dominated by techno-optimistic discourse. Our study stems precisely from a desire to place the voice and experience of teachers at the centre of the analysis.”

According to the authors, digital platforms are not neutral tools: they reorganize school schedules, teaching practice and the very ways pupils learn. Hence the need to assess their impact on secondary education, a crucial stage in pupils’ development and learning, and to do so through interviews with teachers.

The article also seeks to expand upon and refine the results obtained by previous studies which have analysed the impact of digital platforms on school organization. The article is part of the Socio TechED (Socio-technical imaginaries in education: political networks of governance and digital sovereignty) research project, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.

The consequences of learning with screens
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The study’s results associate digital platformization with a fragmentation of pupils’ knowledge, an alteration of their socio-cognitive conditions, disruptions in learning times and a shift in cognitive effort towards technologies such as artificial intelligence.

“According to the teachers interviewed, platforms encourage superficial and fragmented reading, hinder in-depth understanding, and interrupt didactic continuity through short and disconnected tasks. They also impose accelerated rhythms and multitasking logic that affect concentration,” said Navarro, who is attached to the UOC-FuturEd centre.

*“Then there is the use of generative artificial intelligence tools, which facilitates cognitive delegation and reduces students’ personal involvement in basic processes such as writing, synthesis or presenting arguments.” *As a result, respondents have observed a loss of depth in learning, an impoverishment in written language and a decrease in the intellectual autonomy of pupils.

“The educational value of many traditional school assignments and of the current assessment model is also being questioned. And we see increasing saturation and digital fatigue, together with changes to pupils’ subjectivity, as they are increasingly conditioned by the logic of immediacy and instant gratification,” Navarro added. “All of this leads us to emphasize the urgency of rethinking the meaning of learning in a context marked by automation and the attention economy.”

“Then there is the use of generative artificial intelligence tools, which facilitates cognitive delegation and reduces students’ personal involvement in basic processes such as writing, synthesis or presenting arguments.” As a result, respondents have observed a loss of depth in learning, an impoverishment in written language and a decrease in the intellectual autonomy of pupils..

Mostly critical teaching staff
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The results of the study carried out in Catalonia show that the views of the teachers interviewed are mostly critical, although not uniformly so. “The main concerns are the fragmentation of learning, the accelerated pace of school work and the cognitive delegation associated with the use of artificial intelligence. However, ambivalent voices are also emerging, recognizing technology’s pedagogical potential when used selectively, with regulation and critical mediation,” Navarro said.

He added that in many cases teachers assert their professional autonomy to decide when and how to use these resources. Paying attention to the experience of teachers is fundamental to evaluating the impact of digitalization in classrooms, since it is they who observe first-hand how digital platforms and technologies influence attention, effort, assessment and the pedagogical bond.

“In contrast to normative or technocratic discourse that tends to idealize innovation, teachers’ voices highlight the pedagogical, cognitive and symbolic consequences that these changes bring about in day-to-day practice,” Navarro added. “Teachers’ opinions have traditionally been marginalized in these developments, and our goal is to contribute to the public debate by providing empirical evidence on the effects of digitalization, which are often left out of political agendas.”

Navarro and Solé therefore propose to further examine the relationship between digital platforms, artificial intelligence and educational subjectivity, and to analyse what type of students digital schooling produces, what discourses are vying for dominance in education and what the value of teaching and learning is in today’s society.

Citation
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The study Learning with screens? Teachers’ voices on the effects of platformization in secondary education was published in Digital Education Review. Authors: Jordi Solé Blanch, Marta Venceslao Pueyo, Raúl Navarro Zárate.
The article Teachers warn of changes in pupils’ attention and thinking when learning with screens signed by Tania Alonso & Rubén Permuy was published in the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya’s news section.