Learning and teaching is fostered to a great deal by technology. Cell phones and internet can be utilized as effective tools in providing extended and diversified learning opportunities as well as promoters of learning and teaching. However, early internet-enabled cell phones or more recent smartphones have also become easily accessible avenues of distraction and escape. This study explored if and how intention to cyberloaf acts as a mediator in the relationship between attitudes, subjective norms, and cyberloafing with a focus on descriptive and prescriptive norms with respect to instructors and classmates separately. The research was undertaken at a foundation university in Ankara, Turkey with 214 preservice English teachers. The sample consisted of 152 (71.03%) females and 62 (28.97%) males. Cyberloafing scale developed by Kalaycı (2010), adapted versions of Askew et al.’s (2014) attitudes towards cyberloafing scale, subjective descriptive norms scale, cyberloafing intentions scale, and Blanchard and Henle’s (2008) norms scale were used as data collection instruments. Mediation analyses were performed using SPSS 22 with the utilization of SPSS macro, PROCESS v 3.4 (Hayes, 2017). The results of the regression analyses indicated that subjective norms and attitudes significantly predicted cyberloafing; and intentions to cyberloaf was found to be a significant but partial mediator between the variables. The results have significant implications both for academic research on cyberloafing and for educational practices.

Student cyberloafing is a concept that has been mainly investigated in face-to-face educational settings and there are only a few studies that concentrate on this issue in online settings. Therefore, to contribute to the existing line of literature in this respect, the current study sought to explore the types of cyberloafing activities students engage with during online classes, their reasons behind these behaviours, and their views on the possible solutions to prevent these. The sample of the study consisted of 68 preservice English teachers from a foundation university in Central Anatolia, Turkey. A qualitative survey research design was adopted in this study and to that end, data were collected using an online survey instrument that included a demographic information form and three questions related to the research questions. To seek answers to the research questions, data were analysed using thematic analysis. The results showed that preservice English teachers engaged with a wide variety of cyberloafing activities. Moreover, emerging themes with respect to reasons for cyberloafing were instructor, student, course-content, learning environment, and technology-related reasons for cyberloafing whereas themes regarding possible solutions to prevent it were instructor, student, and institution-based solutions.

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