A class quiz on phones puts one question in front of every student at once and keeps every answer. It also puts thirty phones on thirty desks, and that is the part to plan.
This guide is for a class teacher running a five-to-ten-minute quiz in the room: the research on devices in lessons, a two-minute start, the settings for a small screen, and what to do when a phone is missing or dies. The school's phone policy comes first, and retrieval practice makes the case for the short quiz itself.
EdProcto, which publishes this guide, runs such a quiz from one link that ends in the quiz's join code: see its page for teachers.
What does research say about quizzing on phones in class?
It supports asking every student at once, finds little extra learning from the device itself, and is consistent that off-task use costs learning. Almost none of it studied school pupils on their own phones. We read each study as its abstract, and the survey and policy pages at their sources.
What a phone adds to hands up and mini whiteboards
The group tutoring guide makes the case against hands up, where only volunteers answer, and for a response from every student. Three findings bear on the device. All concern clickers, the handheld student response system.
- Participation and honesty. Stowell and Nelson (2007) gave one lecture to simulated classes with clickers, response cards or hand raising. Clickers drew the most participation, then cards; both beat hand raising significantly, and the clicker group was more likely to answer review questions honestly.
- A little learning. Hunsu et al. (2016) pooled studies of classes with and without such systems and found small but significant effects on several cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes.
- No more than cards. Lasry (2007) taught physics by peer instruction with clickers in one group and flashcards in another, and found no learning advantage for the clickers.
Our reading: nothing here shows a phone teaching more than a card or a whiteboard. It adds an answer the neighbours rarely see and a count that outlasts the lesson.
Distraction and off-task use
A phone used for something else costs learning. Kuznekoff et al. (2015) had students watch a lecture while handling messages: those who wrote or answered messages unrelated to it recalled less and took poorer notes, while messages about the lecture did no significant harm.
The nearest study to a school room is Kay et al. (2017): 181 students in three Canadian secondary schools with bring your own device classes. Almost 80% said they were regularly on task, yet 52% used social media and 30% played games at least occasionally. They were more distracted in independent or group work than in lectures. A quiz is independent work, so the phone comes out for it, lies flat, and goes away again.
Small screens and reading
Reading from a screen costs a little comprehension, and more when time is short. Delgado et al. (2018) pooled 54 studies of the same texts read on paper and on screens, with 171,055 participants: paper led by about a fifth of a standard deviation (g = −0.21), and by more under a time limit.
That is about reading texts, not a two-line question, so our rule only follows its direction: short prompts, no passages, nothing to scroll. Sharing a quiz by code or link has the evidence on phones against computers in tests, and on typing speed.
No phone, and the school phone policy
Of 1,391 teenagers surveyed in the United States in 2024, 95% had access to a smartphone: 98% at 15 to 17 and 90% at 13 to 14 (Faverio & Sidoti, 2024). Access is not a charged phone on the desk, so plan for two or three without one in a class of thirty.
Policy decides whether any of this applies. D'Addio (2026) counts 114 education systems, 58% of countries, with a national ban on phones in schools; some allow them for educational purposes. In England, statutory guidance that schools were asked to follow from 1 September 2026 expects phones to be prohibited throughout the school day, lessons included, and lets schools consider limited access for sixth-formers (Department for Education, 2026). Where such a rule holds, run the same quiz on school laptops or tablets.
How do you start a class quiz on phones in two minutes?
Have the link on the board before the phones come out, and spend the two minutes on the link, the names and a first question answered together. The timings are our working rule.
- Before the lesson. Publish. In EdProcto, "Publish & share" shows the code and the link, with "Copy the link".
- 0:00, phones out. Flat on the desk, notifications silenced. Say how it ends: phone face down, then away.
- 0:20, the link. The right screen shows the quiz's title and "Code" with the code beside it.
- 0:50, names. "First name and surname, as on the register." Then the button "I’m ready, begin the quiz".
- 1:10, question 1 together. Read it aloud; everyone taps the answer and presses "Next". The class has learned the screen, and you can count who is in.
- 2:00, alone. "From question 2 you are on your own. Hand in, read your result, phone face down."
Getting the link onto thirty phones
- The class's usual channel. Post the link where the class already looks, such as the school's learning platform. Nobody types.
- The board. Write the whole address, large, and read its last part aloud: the join code ends the link. It goes in the address bar, not the search box.
- A short link you make yourself. With a link shortener your school trusts, the address is quicker to type. Try it on a phone first.
A student who mistypes meets "No quiz has that code". One who opened the link before you published meets "This quiz is not open" and reloads.
What should you set so the quiz works on a phone?
Set short prompts, answers given with a tap, one question to a screen, a name and nothing else at the start, and a time limit. The first two rows are our working rules.
| Decide | For a quiz on phones | In EdProcto |
|---|---|---|
| Length | Six to ten questions (how many a quiz needs) | "Time limit" at "Set", then "Minutes overall" |
| Prompt | About 25 words, no passage | Read each one with "Preview as student" at a phone's width |
| Answer | Tapped before typed | Multiple choice and true or false take one tap; ordering uses arrows; matching uses a drop-down list |
| Screen | One question at a time | "Layout" at "One question a page" |
| Start | A name only | Switch off "An account is needed to take it" |
| Order | The same question 1 on every phone | Switch off "Shuffle the questions for each student" |
| After | Something to read while others finish | "Show the correct answer" and "Show the explanation" at "After submitting" |
Leave "Shuffle the options" on: each phone then shows them in its own order, so talk about an answer by its words, not its letter.
Security measures on a phone
For a quiz that counts for nothing, leave every measure off. The start screen then shows "Integrity" as "None"; with any measure on, each student also ticks a box agreeing to it.
If you want one record, use "Leaving the tab" at "Log it", which the Free plan carries. It logs "Left the quiz’s tab" when the page is hidden, and a browser counts a page as hidden when the screen lock is on (MDN contributors, 2024). A phone that locks while its owner thinks leaves the same line as a search.
"Full screen" suits laptops: the page asks the phone's browser for it and carries on if the browser declines, so leave it off. No setting makes cheating impossible, and a logged event is a record to read, never proof: see integrity.
What do you do about a student with no phone, or a battery that dies?
Hand over a paper copy. It needs no charger, no signal and no second device.
No phone
- Paper. In EdProcto the builder's "Paper" button gives the quiz on paper with an answer key (printing a quiz). Mark it by hand.
- Second on a classmate's phone. The classmate hands in and reloads the link; the borrower types their own name on the start screen and begins. "See your result" there is the owner's.
A flat battery or a lost signal
- What is safe. Each answer goes to the server a moment after it is given, so the answers so far are kept.
- Same phone, same link. Charged or back in signal, the same link in the same browser reopens the attempt at the first unanswered question. The clock has kept running.
- A borrowed phone starts again. Only the browser that began an attempt remembers it. Paper is quicker.
- No signal. At the start the phone shows "The quiz could not be opened": move the student. Later, answers given offline are sent again every few seconds and when the signal returns; until then the bar reads "Not saved yet: trying again", and if handing in fails the screen says so.
An attempt never handed in stays under "In the quiz now" and out of the results. To count it, leave the quiz open: with "Submit by itself when time runs out" on, the page hands in what was saved when that phone next opens the link after its time is up.
What does the teacher watch while the quiz runs?
Watch the room from behind and one list on your own screen: from the back you see thirty screens, from the front thirty faces. That is our working rule.
- The room. Phones flat, the quiz showing. The students in Kay et al. (2017) judged teacher and school restrictions probably the most effective limit on distraction.
- The count. EdProcto's results page lists "In the quiz now": each name, "Progress" as questions answered out of the total, and "In for". After question 1 the count should equal the phones in use.
- A row that stops. It may be thinking, a lost signal or a dead phone. Walk over before you speak. A row leaves the list when its student hands in.
Watching a live quiz covers what a logged event means and when to step in.
What does one lesson look like? A worked example
It looks like eight minutes at the start of a lesson, two paper copies used, and one topic to reteach before the phones go away. The class is an illustration, not a real one; the figures and the quoted lines came from running these answers through EdProcto's analysis code.
Twenty-eight students aged sixteen and seventeen, in a school whose policy lets a teacher ask for phones for a task. Eight multiple-choice questions on electric circuits, each given a topic in the builder, six minutes, every measure off. Q1, the unit of current, is answered together.
- 0:00. Phones out. One student has none and takes a paper copy.
- 0:50. Twenty-six start screens are up. A phone in the far corner shows "The quiz could not be opened"; its owner moves to the window, reloads and is in by 1:30.
- 1:10. Q1 aloud: everyone taps "amperes", then "Next". By 2:00 "In the quiz now" shows 27, and the teacher walks to the back.
- 4:30. One row has stood at 5/8 for a minute: a flat battery. Its owner answers Q6 to Q8 on the second paper copy.
- 7:30. The list is down to that row, and the page reads "26 submitted, 1 in progress".
Under "What it says about the teaching", in the full analysis, the first line read: "Reteach before moving on: Series circuits (46.2%)." The second began "A shared wrong answer on Q2, Q3". Q2 asked for the current in the second of two identical lamps in series when 0.4 A leaves the cell: 9 of 26 chose 0.4 A and 13 chose 0.2 A, as if the lamps shared the current out. Beside Q1 the page noted "Nearly everyone got Q1, so it says little about who knows more." That is the price of answering it together.
Q2 went on the board with both answers and no names, pairs argued for two minutes, and the class answered a new question on mini whiteboards. None of it is a grade. Reading quiz results takes the reading further.
How does EdProcto run a class quiz on phones?
EdProcto runs it as one link that opens in each phone's browser, one question to a screen, each answer saved as it is given. It is the best tool for a five-minute quiz on thirty mixed handsets because the start asks a student for one thing, a name, and because a reload, a lost signal or a locked screen costs no answers: in the example, the phone with no signal lost forty seconds and nothing else.
The start screen says so itself: "Your answers are saved as you go. If your connection drops, open the same link and you continue where you were." The result shows the score, the right answer to each question missed and your explanation.
You get the live list, refreshed every few seconds, then the results by question, and by topic in the full analysis. The answer key stays on the server and the marks are made there (why it is built this way).
Set the kind of quiz to "Quiz night" and the "Host’s screen" shows "Join with the code" in type large enough for a projector, with the link beneath it and a scoreboard (hosting a quiz night).
A class of thirty fits the Free plan: ten quizzes a month, thirty students a quiz, marking by rule and "Got it" for each question, where Q2 stood at 35%. Tutor carries 100 students a quiz with no limit on quizzes. Educator carries 500 and lists the full analysis, which holds the option counts and the line on what to reteach. See pricing.
Quick questions
Can students take a quiz on their phones without an account?
Yes. In EdProcto, with "An account is needed to take it" switched off, a student opens the link and types a name. The page for teachers shows the whole path.
How do students join a quiz with a code?
They open the quiz's link, which ends in its join code, in the phone's browser. Put the whole link on the board or in the class's usual channel.
What if my school bans phones in lessons?
Follow the policy. The same link opens on a school laptop or tablet, and in EdProcto "Paper" prints the quiz with its answer key.
Are phones better than mini whiteboards for a quick check?
No study we read says so: Lasry (2007) found no learning advantage for clickers over flashcards. A phone adds a private answer and a record; a whiteboard is faster.
References
- D'Addio, A. C. (2026, March 19). Phone bans in schools are spreading worldwide as the policy debate rages on. World Education Blog, Global Education Monitoring Report. https://world-education-blog.org/2026/03/19/phone-bans-in-schools-are-spreading-worldwide-as-the-policy-debate-rages-on/
- Delgado, P., Vargas, C., Ackerman, R., & Salmerón, L. (2018). Don't throw away your printed books: A meta-analysis on the effects of reading media on reading comprehension. Educational Research Review, 25, 23–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2018.09.003
- Department for Education. (2026, June 29). Mobile phones in schools. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mobile-phones-in-schools/mobile-phones-in-schools
- Faverio, M., & Sidoti, O. (2024, December 12). Teens, social media and technology 2024. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2024/12/12/teens-social-media-and-technology-2024/
- Hunsu, N. J., Adesope, O., & Bayly, D. J. (2016). A meta-analysis of the effects of audience response systems (clicker-based technologies) on cognition and affect. Computers & Education, 94, 102–119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2015.11.013
- Kay, R., Benzimra, D., & Li, J. (2017). Exploring factors that influence technology-based distractions in bring your own device classrooms. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 55(7), 974–995. https://doi.org/10.1177/0735633117690004
- Kuznekoff, J. H., Munz, S., & Titsworth, S. (2015). Mobile phones in the classroom: Examining the effects of texting, Twitter, and message content on student learning. Communication Education, 64(3), 344–365. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2015.1038727
- Lasry, N. (2007). Peer instruction: Comparing clickers to flashcards. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0702186
- MDN contributors. (2024, May 8). Document: visibilityState property. MDN Web Docs. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Document/visibilityState
- Stowell, J. R., & Nelson, J. M. (2007). Benefits of electronic audience response systems on student participation, learning, and emotion. Teaching of Psychology, 34(4), 253–258. https://doi.org/10.1080/00986280701700391