"Students are increasingly more distracted and off-task with technology. While contemporary research has clearly argued the pervasive nature and problematic effects of media distracted behavior, research has yet to identify and validate, by way of a real-world experiment, an efficacious and promising practical or pedagogical response. This dissertation study used a quasi-experimental, longitudinal experiment to test regulating smartphone applications that purport to mitigate distracted technology use and heighten the student attention. To test whether or not different regulating applications "work" as purported, this study examined two different regulating applications and their effects on the media distracted behavior, student engagement, behavioral regulation, perceptions of technology dependency, and course performance. The experiment included first-year college students enrolled in a mandated entry-level science course at a medium-sized public STEM and applied science university. Stratified random assignment permitted experimental, contamination, and control treatment group comparisons. Long-term motivation effects (including student-held feelings with self-efficacy, expectancy-value, and achievement goals) were also considered. Last, varying application affordances and design approaches were contrasted by way of feelings related to self-determination. The results of quantitative and qualitative data analyses indicated that applications sporadically and minimally lowered student reported media distracted behavior in and outside of class, but had no effect on engagement, behavioral regulation, or perceived dependency on technology. Unexpectedly, there was a negative effect on Chemistry motivation, as students reported lower expectancy-value, more negative achievement goals, and lower self-efficacy. Last, application use negatively affected student performance in the course as those asked to use regulating applications generally performed poorer as compared to those in the control and contamination groups. Challenging the promising assertions of regulating applications, the results of this dissertation suggest that rather than alleviate the problem, these particular apps may actually exacerbate media distraction's negative effects by also diminishing engagement, regulation, achievement, and motivation."--Pages ii-iii.
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