User:Bmccann5/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Mobile Phone Use in Schools

Mobile phone use in schools

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I chose this article to review because it feels like cell phone use is the classroom management issue I am dealing with most often. I was expecting this article to make a strong case both for and against the use of cell phones in schools; but the article mostly references studies which indicate low levels of achievement and attention among students. On the other hand, the "arguments" in favor of phone use are greater access to information and references to a few useful tools. However, there are no studies indicating if this access to tools and information has actually led to student improvements. I also feel that most of these tools and information can be accessed through computers and not just mobile devices. This suggests to me that either there is not a great deal of research to support phone use in school, or that the editors of this article are biased against phone use in classes.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

Lead Section

The lead section succeeds in providing a brief overview of the topics by identifying both sides of the argument. Almost everything highlighted in the lead section is discussed in the article itself with the major exception of mobile apps being a resource for information access. Additionally, the section at the end of the article regarding messaging apps is not mentioned in the lead section. Also, some of the claims made about the benefits of mobile phone use, such as enhancing critical thinking skills, are not supported by any external sources. Likewise, the supposed quote from the surgeon general about the harm of social media is not cited. As a result, if a person were to read only the lead section then they would be left with a potentially inaccurate view of the issue.

Content

The three main content sections of this article are studies on the subject, regulations in various countries, and an overview of some useful messaging applications that can be used in school. All of these sections are relevant to the topic and are mostly supported by recent and accessible research that had been conducted within the last ten years. One area I found lacking was the information about phone regulation policies in France which is brief and not supported by any external sources. The content would also be improved by adding a section about how phones can be used as a useful tool for gathering information since that was highlighted in the lead section. As it stands, the messaging apps are the only positive case made for phone use in class.

Tone and Balance

Some sections of the article such as the phone regulations by countries is neutral in its presentation since it is presenting information about the laws of each country without labeling them as positive or negative. However, the rest of it seems to be strongly against the use of phones in class. For example, all of the studies introduced in the article highlight the negative effects of phone use in class which means either research in favor of phone use does not exist or it was intentionally omitted.

Sources

All of the links to sources and other Wikipedia articles appear to work and come from a variety of related and relevant sources. Not all of the sources are of an academic nature as some are news outlets and personal blogs which may be more opinion than research based. Below are a sampling of some of the sources listed.

[https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244015573169 Lepp, Andrew; Barkley, Jacob E; Karpinski, Aryn C. (February 19, 2015). "The Relationship Between Cell Phone Use and Academic Performance in a Sample of U.S. College Students". SAGE Open. 5 (1): 215824401557316. doi:10.1177/2158244015573169.]

- This study is accurately used to support the claim that increased cellphone use is a negative indicator of GPA scores.

"Is the school phone ban based on moral panic?".

- This citation only includes a title and tells me nothing about who the author is or the sourcing. It was used to support the claim that removing phones does nothing to mitigate cyberbullying. While this is an opinion expressed in the article it is mostly based on the writers personal opinion rather than any kind of research.

[https://www.thetechedvocate.org/13-best-apps-high-school-students/ "13 of the Best Apps for High School Students". The Tech Edvocate. 2018-02-06. Retrieved April 19, 2019.]

- This is a blog that is meant to list apps that would be useful for high schoolers to use. In the Wikipedia article it is used to highlight the fact that there are a lot of tools that could be incorporated in schools. The citation itself only includes about 1 or 2 sentences describing 13 different apps and how they work but the connection to the classroom is not made clear for all of them.

General Quality

Overall the article is written well in terms of spelling and grammar but it is very one sided. As previously mentioned there seems to be a clear bias on removing cell phones from the classroom while lacking strong arguments in favor of keeping them in the classroom. Since the writing is well done but one sided most people who read this article would probably be persuaded that cell phones in the classroom lead to problems. They would also become more aware of the legal hurdles in actually banning cell phones from the classroom. There is very little media included in the article, just one picture of a cell phone bin at the start, but I'm not sure what other kind of media would enhance the article. The first step in improving this article would be to find better sources and arguments for incorporating cellphones in the classroom, this would provide a more balanced article for the reader.