As a teacher, you know about this phenomenon, but you probably didn’t know its name. Attention contagion. You’ve seen it in your classroom: one student is off task and that inattention seems to spread throughout the room. One student with their head down leads to three or four doing the same. One student off task on their laptop leads to a handful all doing the same. And, again, as a teacher we know this happens. But some recent research looked to see just how prevalent this phenomenon is.
A study out of the University of Waterloo (1) took an in-depth look at attention contagion in the classroom and some of the results may be what you’d expect, but there were a few interesting tidbits that even surprised me; a classroom teacher of 18 years.
Participants of the study were all undergraduate students. In experiment 1, a participant was seated behind a confederate of the study (a confederate is someone who aids the experimenter by posing as a participant, but their behavior is rehearsed and scripted prior to the experiment). The confederate would either display attentive behaviors (leaning forward, taking notes, et cetera) or inattentive behaviors (slouching, shifting gaze, glancing at the clock, taking infrequent notes, et cetera). Researchers watched the participant to see if they were more or less likely to imitate the confederates’ behaviors.
After watching a video of a lecture and taking notes while being seated behind either an attentive or inattentive confederate, participants completed a survey and a multiple-choice questions quiz on the information presented. Here are some of the results from experiment 1:
- Participants were asked to rate (1-10) the attentiveness of the confederate in the room with them and it appears they were able to consciously recognize either attentive or inattentive behaviors. The average rating for attentive confederates was 8.88 and 4.29 for inattentive confederates.
- Participants also stated that the inattentive confederates were distracting and did impact their ability to attend to the lecture.
- Participants in the room with attentive confederates took significantly more notes than those in the room with inattentive confederates.
- Participants in the room with attentive confederates scored higher (58.76 average) on the post-lecture quiz than those in the room with the inattentive confederate (53.14).
Now, I’ll bet none of this is a surprise to you. When someone off task is seated within a student’s field of view and/or range of hearing, those behaviors can impact others. Note-taking and student learning can be negatively impacted. We know this. This is just research to prove it.
In experiment 2, the researchers make one important change. Instead of the confederate being seated in front of the participant, the confederate is now seated behind the participant. Will the attentive or inattentive confederate’s behaviors still be contagious when our of their field of view? I think this is a more daring question by the researchers.
After going through the same experimental processes as experiment 1, the reseachers analyzed the data and here are some of the results:
- Participants were still significantly more attentive to the lecture when paired with an attentive confederate.
- Participants still took more notes when paired with an attentive confederate.
- Participants did not rate the confederate’s behavior as being distracting.
- Participants did score higher when paired with an attentive confederate (55.86) versus when paired with an inattentive confederate (53.67), but is not statistically significant.
So, what does all this tell me as a teacher? That’s the important bit, right? What do I do with this information in my classroom?
Well, this seems to show that attention contagion is real and it impacts not only the inattentive student, but those seated in front of, beside, and behind. Also, students do appear to be aware of inattentive behaviors when they can see and hear them (as is indicated in experiment 1), but are also impacted by inattentive behaviors when they don’t consciously recognize it (as is indicated in experiment 2). So, I can’t necessarily rely on students to know when they are distracted. It is certainly my job in the classroom to provide an environment with as little distraction as possible to maximize learning. I need to be aware of studies like this and attempt to quell inattentive behaviors in the classroom.
Something else I believe all teachers should do, but very few do, is make the students aware of studies like this and their results. Students may not realize their impact on those around them. They may think that it’s okay if they are off task because that only impacts their learning, but this study shows otherwise. I really believe my student appreciate being shown real statistics and data in studies like this. It gives them a sense of being treated like mature learners and then, in turn, they begin to act like it. So, it is certainly important that teachers understand the ramifications of attention contagion studies, I would argue it is at least just as important that students understand, too. If we want to grow more intelligent learners, we need to let them know what more efficient and effective learners do.
If you have a hankering for studies like this and would like a further look into attention contagion and other aspects of learning, I’ve written a book (with the lovely people at InnerDrive and Routledge Publishing) that will be available around the end of the year. If you’d like to receive a message when the book is available for purchase, please click here and enter your information. Thanks : )
- Forrin, N. D., Huynh, A. C., Smith, A. C., Cyr, E. N., McLean, D. B., Siklos-Whillans, J., … & MacLeod, C. M. (2021). Attention spreads between students in a learning environment. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 27(2), 276.
Feature image by Shubham Sharan on Unsplash