{"id":952,"date":"2010-07-12T09:32:32","date_gmt":"2010-07-12T13:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/?p=952"},"modified":"2012-09-27T10:37:31","modified_gmt":"2012-09-27T14:37:31","slug":"do-computers-and-internet-access-at-home-reduce-student-test-scores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/educational-ict-at-home\/do-computers-and-internet-access-at-home-reduce-student-test-scores\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Computers and Internet Access at Home Reduce Student Test Scores?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The recent New York Times article Computers at Home: Educational Hope vs. Teenage Reality<\/a> brings into question the benefits of computer and Internet usage at home to improve education. <\/p>\n

\"new<\/a>
Is this the home ICT usage reality?<\/span><\/div>\n

The article cites two studies that indicate that when computers and Internet access are provided to students for household usage – either subsidized or not – home-based ICT does not have any measurable educational benefit, even reducing<\/i> test scores in math and English in low-income students.<\/p>\n

First, from Romanian data, we have Ofer Malamud and Cristian Pop-Eleches writing in Home Computer Use and the Development of Human Capital<\/a> that:<\/p>\n

“We collected survey data from households who participated in a unique government program in Romania which allocated vouchers for the purchase of a home computer to low-income children based on a simple ranking of family income.<\/p>\n

Children who won a voucher had significantly lower school grades in Math, English and Romanian but significantly higher scores in a test of computer skills and in self-reported measures of computer fluency. There is also evidence that winning a voucher increased cognitive ability, as measured by Raven\u2019s Progressive Matrices. We do not find much evidence for an effect on non-cognitive outcomes.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Next, from North Carolina data, we have Charles Clotfelter, Helen Ladd and Jacob Vigdor writing in Scaling the Digital Divide: Home Computer Technology and Student Achievement<\/a> that:<\/p>\n

Using within-student variation in home computer access, and across-ZIP code variation in the timing of the introduction of high-speed internet service, we also demonstrate that the introduction of home computer technology is associated with modest but statistically significant and persistent negative impacts on student math and reading test scores. Further evidence suggests that providing universal access to home computers and high-speed internet access would broaden, rather than narrow, math and reading achievement gaps.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For this month’s Educational Technology Debate, we’ll question these studies, and similar ones, to try and explain these results and what they might mean to educators in the developing world.<\/p>\n

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\nWhat do you think of these reports?<\/b><\/p>\n

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\nSo what is your opinion? Did the researchers find an ugly truth we’ve been ignoring, as this quote suggests:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found a negative effect on academic achievement,\u201d Ofer Malamud said. \u201cI was surprised, but as we presented our findings at various seminars, people in the audience said they weren\u2019t surprised, given their own experiences with their school-age children.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And was the implication from Jacob Vigdor accurate, that in low-income homes (vs. more prosperous ones):<\/p>\n

Left to their own devices, adolescents may be more likely to use computers for non-productive purposes, to the potential detriment of their academic performance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or should we as technologists and educators reject their findings as missing the point, that we should Stop Wasting Children with ICT4E Assessments<\/a>, and get on with making sure all students, from all economic backgrounds, have ICT in their schools and their homes?<\/p>\n

Don’t be shy, share your thoughts in the comments below, or as Guest Post on this topic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Don’t miss a moment of the action!<\/h2>\n

Subscribe now and get the latest articles from Educational Technology Debate sent directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The recent New York Times article Computers at Home: Educational Hope vs. Teenage Reality brings into question the benefits of computer and Internet usage at home to improve education. Is this the home ICT usage reality? The article cites two studies that indicate that when computers and Internet access are provided to students for household […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[545],"tags":[548,549,554,547,553,551,546,550,552],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=952"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2571,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952\/revisions\/2571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}