Date: April 6th, 2018

To: Jessica McCarthy

Professional Writing Professor University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

From: Dakota Anderson, UTC Student

Subject: Recommendation Memo for Multitasking Study

Purpose & Summary

Attached is my Recommendation Memo for my study on multitasking and

how it affects students. To complete this study I did online research and I surveyed
students to see how multitasking is impacting them. After completing this study I
found that most students do find themselves very distracted when it comes to
schoolwork and studying. These days most students hold a part-time or full-time job
and also try to be involved on campus and maintain a good GPA. It can be very
difficult as a student to find time for each and every thing we would like to do
therefore we often find ourselves multitasking.
Multitasking in small portions is normal and can be harmless. However,
excessive multitasking when students need to be focused on studying or homework
it can be harmful to their academic performance. I believe part of the reason some
students do poorly on exams is because it is so easy to be distracted. It is so easy to
say ‘I will start studying in an hour” or “I will just wake up to study early in the
morning.” To be successful we as students need to find better ways to keep from
procrastinating and being distracted.
I recommend to improve academic performance that students dedicate
certain times that are just for schoolwork and set all distractions aside. This
includes putting our cell phones away so we are not tempted to use them to scroll
through our social media accounts.
This study has been very eye opening to me and I look forward to
implementing more effective studying habits. To get in contact to me regarding this
study, my email is csl933@mocs.utc.edu.
 Multitasking and how it affects students at the
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga: A
Recommendation Memo
April 6th, 2018

Prepared for: Jessica McCarthy

Professional Writing Professor
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Prepared by: Dakota Anderson, Junior UTC Student

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

615 McCallie Avenue
Chattanooga, TN 37403
 Introduction

As a college student, I sometimes find myself guilty of multitasking. I work

Monday-Friday and I also attend classes three days out of the week on campus. I
find myself staying very busy throughout the work/school week and it can be a bit
overwhelming at times. Many times while working on school work I can easily be
distracted by the smallest things, such as a notification on my phone, or even catch
myself thinking of things not related to what I am trying to direct my attention
towards.
I have taken several classes on campus and I have noticed no matter what the
class is every semester I see many students distracted on cell phones in my classes
and it made me wonder how being distracted can effect that students learning. As I
often find myself distracted as well outside of the classroom, I realized this could be
affecting my learning as well without me even realizing it. It is important to perform
a research study on this issue because many students are guilty of multitasking
when it comes to school work and awareness needs to be brought to the attention of
all students what effects this can have on their overall academic performance and
GPA.
My findings from this research could have a tremendous impact on all college
students. To be successful in college and achieve the grades you want, it is important
to partake in effective studying routines so students are able to retain the
information they are learning about.
Today, multitasking is a big issue in our society because of forever changing
technology. We all love to stay up to date and we love to keep up with the new apps,
games, and so on. With each new app that we download, it could potentially be
another distraction when doing schoolwork. It is important for us as college
students to limit the times on our cell phones and apps when we are trying to study,
as this is not the appropriate time to be scrolling through our social media pages.
However, it is important to take periodic studying breaks to give your brain a rest.
 Research Methods

To begin the research for this study I completed the following tasks.

Task 1: Research the effects of multitasking

Task 2: Conduct surveys
Task 3: Analyze data
Task 4: Find more effective studying habits
Task 5: Create recommendations for students to improve their GPA

Task 1: Research the effects of multitasking – for this task I completed online
research to see how multitasking could potentially impact students and to see how
students who often get distracted perform academically.

Task 2: Conduct surveys – for this task I conducted surveys to current students to
see how many students find themselves multitasking while studying and to see how
many students had concerns with their current studying habits to see how many
students think their studying routine needs improvement.

Task 3: Analyze data – for this task I analyzed the data from the surveys to gather
my results and get a bigger picture of what current students struggle with.

Task 4: Find more effective studying habits – for this task I researched how students
can partake in effective studying habits to improve their overall academic
performance.

Task 5: Create recommendations for students to improve their GPA – for this task I
came up with recommendations for current students who believe their studying
routine needs improvement.
 Results

This section of the recommendation memo will show the results of my research.

From my online research I found that it is very common for students to

struggle with distraction. My research also shows that distraction can directly affect
the student’s academic performance and potentially cause issues. It is found that
when students multitask it increases the overall study time the student spends on
studying but also lowers the student’s grades. So not only are these students
spending a lot of time to study, they are also performing poorly. A study by the
University of Connecticut showed that texting was the number one distraction
among students and social media, emails, and surfing the web was a close second.
The study also found that students retained the information they were studying
better when they are paying attention to just the task at hand.
The student survey’s found that most students admitted to being distracted
while studying on a normal basis. When asked if students continually text friends
and have conversations while studying for an exam, most students answered yes.
When student’s were asked if they have failed tests even after studying for long
periods of time, many students answered yes. My study found that even if students
put in long hours studying for an exam they could potentially still perform poorly if
they were multitasking. It is important for us as students to focus on the task at
hand so we are able to retain the material more long-term and not just short-term.

Conclusion/Recommendation

The research I conducted showed that multitasking while studying is in fact

very risky as a student. Many students probably do not realize the toll it is taking on
them when they are scrolling throughout Facebook and texting friends as they are
preparing for an exam. Although it may not seem like these small distractions would
make a big difference on our academic performance, research says otherwise. These
results mean that we need to better educate students on how distraction can cause
poor performance and we need to provide recommendations for students to partake
in effective studying.
My recommendation is for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to
educate their students on the harm distraction can cause on their education. I
recommend for students to create days and times that are meant for
studying/schoolwork and when it is time for students to study they need to put all
distractions away. Cell phones should be turned off or put in a place that they will
not cause temptation. Education is essential and successful academic performance is
crucial

Works Cited/References.

Buser, T., & Peter, N. (2012). Multitasking. Experimental Economics, 15(4), 641–655.
oi:10.1007/s10683-012-9318-8
https://link-springer-com.proxy.lib.utc.edu/article/10.1007/s10683-012-9318-8

Dindar, M., & Akbulut, Y. (2016). Effects of multitasking on retention and topic interest.
Learning and Instruction, 41, 94–105. doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2015.10.005
https://www-sciencedirect-
com.proxy.lib.utc.edu/science/article/pii/S0959475215300372

Morgan, B., D&Amp;Apos, & Mello, S. (2016). The influence of positive vs. negative
affect on multitasking. Acta Psychologica, 170, 10–18. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2016.06.006
https://www-sciencedirect-com.proxy.lib.utc.edu/science/article/pii/S0001691816301172

Xu, S., Wang, Z., & David, P. (2016). Media multitasking and well-being of university
students. Computers in Human Behavior, 55, 242–250. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2015.08.040
https://www-sciencedirect-com.proxy.lib.utc.edu/science/article/pii/S0747563215301163