Teachers and students benefit from a low number of classroom disruptions. Summarizing existing definitions, classroom disruptions hereby are understood as effects that make the teaching/learning process temporarily impossible (Meinokat & Wagner, 2024). While those disruptions are obstacles for students’ academic success (Marquez et al., 2016) teachers who must face disruptions frequently put their psychological health at risk (Rajendran et al., 2020). Unfortunately, classroom disruptions occur on average every 42 seconds (Wettstein & Scherzinger, 2018), leaving teachers with a need for solutions. Research shows, that the implementation of digitalization in daily school education, as deemed by international stakeholders (European Union, 2020), opens ways for such solutions while at the same time creating possibilities for new challenges (Meinokat & Wagner, 2024). For the area of mathematics, research has already been conducted in terms of connections between classroom disruptions and the subject (Marder et al., 2023) as well as for the possible impact of digitalization (Aqda et al., 2011). There is also existing research on the connection between classroom disruptions and digitalization (Meinokat & Wagner, 2024), which is enhancing the so far only systemization for classroom disruptions in digital settings: the student online misbehavior scale by Li & Titsworth (2015). Up to now, a focused view on classroom disruptions in digitally supported mathematics classes is missing. Furthermore, current research is mostly considering the point of view of teachers for various reasons (Meinokat & Wagner, 2022). Undoubtedly, the insights from students will be beneficial for this area of interest. This is why this study focuses on the following two research questions:

1. How are digitally supported mathematics classes perceived by students?
2. What makes students feel disrupted in digitally supported mathematics classes?

To answer the research questions, this study conducts a questionnaire with 254 students from various secondary schools in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg in Germany. As this research addresses a previously unexplored connection, a new questionnaire with 60 items is developed. The items are partly adapted from various existing research (for example: Baumert et al. (2008) and Helmke (2008)) in connected areas and partly newly created. Apart from the demographic questions, most of the items in the questionnaire are ordinally scaled Likert scales ranging from [1] never to [5] always or [1] disagree to [5] agree, which are supplemented by nominally scaled items. The questionnaire is carried out on site at the schools in a printed version, transferred to SPSS Version 30 and analyzed there. Based on bivariate correlations, semantically identical orientations and in connection to the already existing research, multi-item scales are developed for the following constructs: • The student’s feeling of being disrupted • The perceived enjoyment of mathematics classes • The behavior of classmates • The behavior of the teacher • Technical issues and preparation • The student’s understanding of given assignments • The experienced level of quietness in the classroom • The self-reported level of attentiveness in lessons • The self-reported intentional misuse of digital media All scales reach a Cronbachs α of at least .5 with multiple scales showing a good internal consistency. The research questions are than answered descriptively and statistically through performing a multiple linear regression analysis. Requirements for the linear regression analysis are all met.

The results show that tablets are used very often (mean = 1.90, SD = 1.138, n = 248) in mathematics classes. Other digital media like computer/laptop, visualizer or smartphones show lower usage rates. 95 students also report the use of digital blackboards/smartboards inside their classes. Furthermore, the use of (overhead) projectors, learning movies, calculators and virtual reality headsets is reported as well. In combination to the feeling of being disrupted, students indicate a rather low level of disruptions in this setting (mean = 2.036, SD = .595, n = 254). Slightly lower but still positive results are reached for the other scales with experienced technical issues (mean = 2.511, SD = .784, n = 253) and the level of quietness (mean = 2.961, SD = .861, n = 233) being the lowest. This underscores that the questioned students in general do not feel heavily disrupted in digital mathematics settings but have experienced problems through technical issues and the general level of noise. Results of the regression analysis indicate that with a variance explanation of 55% (adjusted R² = .55, p <.001), the behavior of classmates (B =.264, p < .001), the teacher behavior (B = .152, p = .014), technical issues (B = .365, p < .001) and the student’s understanding of given assignments (B = .211, p < .001) significantly affect the feeling of being disrupted. Comparing this to already existing research (Meinokat & Wagner, 2024), it can be seen that students and teachers often have a uniform understanding of what is perceived as disruptive, while there are categories that only teachers express. This indicates the need for more research on the students’ point of view as well as creating a foundation where students and teachers can communicate about disruptive situations on a mutual understanding.

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