Best practice in screen use for education: survey findings

This report details the results of a series of NSW statewide surveys to capture the perceptions and practices of key education stakeholders towards the use of screens by school students. It forms part of the project Best Practice in Screen Use for Education, sponsored by the NSW Government and administered by the NSW Department of Education through its Screen Use and Addiction Research Fund (2025–2026). The 16-member project team comprises academics specialising in educational technologies from all 11 NSW-based universities (Macquarie University, Western Sydney University, Australian Catholic University, Charles Sturt University, Southern Cross University, University of New England, University of New South Wales, University of Sydney, University of Technology Sydney). By providing insights into school students’ screen use patterns for both learning and leisure across school and home settings from a range of stakeholder perspectives, this report aims to provide a comprehensive account of current strengths, emerging challenges, and areas opportunity to optimise screens use by school students.

Consistent with the project’s design, this report primarily contains descriptive analysis and reports survey findings only. In future, this report will be complemented by results from focus groups and classroom observations, which will later be synthesised and triangulated with these survey results to gain further insights. The final project outputs will include public reporting of project findings, a Quality Screen Use Toolkit and associated guidance resources for students, parents, school leaders, teachers, and pre-service teachers.