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June 15, 2000
Taking Stock:
What Does the Research Say About Technology's Impact on Education?
from the May 1998 issue of Technology & Learning magazine
The Overview
by Judy Salpeter, Editor-in-chief, Technology & Learning magazine
Questions about educational technology and whether "it's working" continue
to rage as our nation grapples with the next steps involved in readying schools for the 21st century. On one end of the spectrum, there are the critics who argue that there is "no research evidence whatsoever" to support claims that technology is worthwhile in schools. On the other end, entire publications such as Report on the Effectiveness of Technology in Schools, '90-'97, written by IESD, Inc., and published by the Software Publishers Association, offer pages of evidence of technology's positive impact on schools.
We might all love to find a neutral source to referee the question but, as
is often the case, it's an issue that's far too complex to yield a simple answer. Educational research is extremely hard to do right and just as difficult to interpret. You can find a study out there addressing almost any question you might ask. More likely, you'll find two--one that says the technology was helpful and another concluding that it made little difference. Which leads one to metaanalyses--reports that group numerous research studies in order to ascertain the big picture. The problem with these is that they are often too broad. What can we learn, for example, from a study that groups a math drill program from 1984 with uses of the Internet for collaborative learning in 1996? The metaanalyses that group more tightly--focusing only on word processing, for example--tend to be far more enlightening, but one still has to trust that the designers of the original studies asked the right questions and adhered to the principles of good research design.
And that's a tough thing to trust since conducting research in schools is such a challenge. Controlling variables is next to impossible when we're talking about people--adjusting for teaching styles, identifying children who are "comparable," dealing with families that move or pull kids from a program, or facing the political and legal battles that result from attempting to deny technology access to one group of kids for a prolonged length of time. Then there's the vital question of what is being measured and how--something the researchers quoted on the next several pages addressed extensively in our talks with them.
In the end, we're not going to get a yes or no answer. I could tell you that, in perusing the studies and reports, I've seen more positive than negative results, but that too would be suspect. Even if you believe I have been able to put my own personal bias aside, there's the fact that all researchers have their own biases. In general, the people who've chosen to evaluate technology programs do so not to prove that such programs are worthless but to help educators improve and refine what they're doing. Even Sherry Turkle (whom I was unable to connect with for this article) or Larry Cuban--both of whom are vocal about their concerns about the downsides of certain approaches to technology use in schools--would readily admit that they would love to see their research guide educators to truly helpful ways of using technology in schools.
Inevitably, then, an intelligent look at the research leads away from an attempt to come up with a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" answer and finds us embarking on the more complex task of asking what types of technology, with which types of students, under what conditions, lead to best results.
These are the sorts of questions we posed in interviews with some leading research experts --featured here at this site.
Henry Jay Becker >>
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