Assessing perceptions of multitasking

Abstract

Our research investigates undergraduate perceptions about multitasking behavior in academic group collaboration events especially during capstone projects at Ahmedabad University. This research used both semi-structured interviews and a vignette-based survey as part of its sequential mixed-methods design structure to study how students rationalized their own multitasking behaviors and evaluated their peers' multitasking as well as group dynamic effects. The data from qualitative interviews demonstrates that students perform multiple tasks because they must handle academic work together with social obligations but agrees that multitasking decreases their ability to concentrate while making communication and group relationships weaker. Self-serving and actor-observer biases caused students to defend their own multitasking because they viewed peer multitasking as disengagement or disrespect. The experimental phase failed to prove environmental framing effects on multitasking perceptions because participants' interpretations mainly relied on actual interactions instead of artificial environmental stimuli. The research demonstrates that multitasking during team collaboration negatively affects psychological safety together with trust formation and group productivity performance. The study demonstrates a need to make people understand the social costs of multitasking and developing attention management methods suitable for college learning spaces. Research should adopt immersive behavioral methodologies together with longitudinal study methods to monitor changes in interpersonal relations and collaborative performance caused by multitasking behavior.