Students do not effectively self-regulate their media multitasking, although some evidence suggests that they adjust their reading time. Media multitasking persists despite students' awareness that it divides their attention. The impact on performance of a task is not accurately predicted by students. Multitasking during study may hinder the development of an effective learning strategy. As a result, media multitasking inhibits metacognition and self-regulation, preventing implementation of the appropriate learning strategy and resulting in poor performance.

Self-regulation's relation with students' academic performance

The role of media multitasking on comprehension is dependent on self-regulation and self-awareness. After returning to the primary task, students with a high level of metacognition or self-awareness recognized deficiencies in comprehension and reread portions of the article. Media multitasking affects performance differently depending on the type of work. No matter the context, students tend to multitask with smartphones whether they're learning in class, studying outside the class, or working on homework alone or in collaboration. Technology-related distractions have an adverse effect on homework effort and the environment, although media such as smartphones provide access to educational resources and facilitate collaboration.

Summaries of perceptions of multitasking and self-regulation

Students’ self-initiated, strategically guided, and self-sustained efforts to learn.

 A learner uses cognitive, emotional, and behavioral processes to activate and maintain their cognitions, emotions, and behaviors to reach their personal goals. To monitor their effectiveness and adapt their performance, learners use these goals to create self-oriented feedback loops. Motivational beliefs are essential to setting challenging goals and maintaining self-regulation efforts on demanding tasks. Being cognitive emotions, and the environment must be controlled in order for learners to respond to feedback adaptively.

Examples of self-regulation in academy

Self-regulation is similar in meaning to related self-hyphenated terms, such as self-control, self-management, self-directed behavior, and self-discipline

A similarity that self-regulation and self-discipline share

Self-regulation requires an individual to consciously manage their thoughts, behaviors, and feelings.

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

•	The academic performance of multitasking students is typically lower than that of on-task students. There was a prediction among students that media use would result in less self-control and less negative affect. Although students' predictions were accurate in the direction they predicted, they underestimated the impact of media multitasking.

•	Multitasking with media may have negative effects on students, but they continue to do it anyway. However, students who texted received lower grades than those who listened to lectures. Students seem to be incapable of making discerning and accurate decisions about multitasking while completing academic homework.

•	It is more likely that non-multitasking students will be able to predict scores accurately than multitasking students. Students seem to be bad at recognizing and controlling inhibitors of performance, as evidenced by data on multitaskers' metacognitive beliefs.


Students' perceptions of multitasking and self-regulation

May, K.E., Elder, A.D. Efficient, helpful, or distracting? A literature review of media multitasking in relation to academic performance. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 15, 13 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-018-0096-z


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