A new federal study gives us a surprising answer. Find out what the results were after a major two-year study using computer software for reading and math.
Federal Study
For two years, the federal government monitored 9,424 students. They were divided into these categories:
1st grade early reading
4th grade reading comprehension
6th grade pre-algebra
9th grade algebra
The Software
The products were chosen from more than 160 products and the companies are well known to those in education.
PLATO Inc.
Carnegie Learning Inc.
Houghton Mifflin Co.
Scholastic Inc.
iLearn
Leapfrog Schoolhouse
Autoskill International Inc.
Pearson PLC
Headsprout Inc.
Random Selection
Teachers volunteered for the study and were either asked to use the products or taught according to their own curriculum guides and tools. 439 teachers participated in 132 schools and 33 districts. Teachers that were selected to use the specified software used them in reading and math. The teachers in the control group taught as they normally would. [Andrew Trotter, Education Week, edweek.org, April 4, 2007]
Results
In the Report to Congress, the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, the following was stated:
Test scores were not significantly higher in classrooms using the reading and mathematics software products than those in control classrooms.
Although the study collected data on many school and classroom characteristics, only two characteristics were related to the variation in reading achievement. For first grade, effects were larger in schools that had smaller student-teacher ratios. For fourth grade, effects were larger when treatment teachers reported higher levels of use of the study product.
Complications
This, of course, will "complicate things for the advocates of technology in education who are lobbying the Bush administration and members of Congress to continue providing millions of dollars annually in support for classroom technology" [Education Week, April 10, 2007] The study did not evaluate each software product separately.
Use of Government Money
There are now many rumblings about the use of federal tax funding for grants that don't produce results. Several officials, including Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, have commented recently that the public has not seen much of a return on the federal government's investments of millions of dollars in grants to states and school districts for educational technology. [Education Week, April 10, 2007]
Conclusion
We learn again that --
There is no magic pill or bullet.
One-on-one relationships with students can not be replaced with computers.
Smaller classrooms yield better results.
Good teaching is as important (or more) than the latest technology.
However, technology is important in the future of every student. It is the wave of the future. And, whether students significantly improve with technology or without it, technology will be with us at a fast pace. Thomas Frey, of the DaVinci Institute, has a vision of how technology will change education in the future.
Copyright article 2007 Barbara Pytel. All Rights Reserved.
The copyright of the article Learning and Technology in Curriculum Issues is owned by Barbara Pytel. Permission to republish Learning and Technology in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
Personally I feel that this article really did not say to much about how
computers are effective in the classroom or if they produce higher testing
scores.
Dec 10, 2008 7:16 AM
Guest :
I think that was the point of the article. Results are not consistant.
Probably not likely to get funding.
Feb 2, 2009 3:11 PM
Guest :
Leave it to the government to waste money funding an UNSCIENTIFIC study to
support their resistance to provide funding where it could actually
count.
Granted, it's very hard to eliminate variables and
maintain a control in a "study" like this, but let's look at the
flaws:
1) Teachers volunteered; already, this means it was not a
random sample of teachers, but only a certain type of teacher. 2)
Teachers were not given any training on how to use the software; they were
simply told to "use technology" how they see fit. This nullifies
any validity or point of the exercise, because previous studies have
ALREADY proven that education technology ONLY works if the people
implementing it know what they are doing and how to effectively use it.
The word I'm thinking of here is "duh." Computers don't do
magical things by themselves. Any more than books or calculators do. 3) Over 160 different programs were used? With no discrimination or
elimination of variables whatsoever? That's ridiculous. What is some of
the programs are effective and some aren't? 4) The sample was only
9,424 students? That is a tiny, non-representative sample. 5) What
was the demographic of this population like? Homogenous? Heterogenous?
Did classes of "control groups" have the same number of students,
same race, same primary language, same socio-economic status as the
variable groups?
This is the most unscientific argument and
conclusion I have possibly ever read. [also, it does not agree with the
fact that I have used technoogy to raise student lexile scores 100 points
in less than 6 weeks of 3-hour-per-week sessions]
Paid
professionals conducted this study?? Well, I guess now you know where are
tax dollars go and why we have no money.