What Forty Years of Research Says About the Impact of Technology on Learning

TLDR

The study conducts a second‑order meta‑analysis of 40 years of research to determine whether computer technology use affects student achievement in face‑to‑face classrooms compared to non‑technology classrooms. The authors performed a second‑order meta‑analysis of 40 years of research, validated it with a study‑level meta‑analysis, and extracted 574 independent effect sizes from 13 of the 25 included meta‑analyses. The meta‑analysis of 25 studies (1,055 primary studies) yielded a significant random‑effects mean effect size of about 0.34–0.35, with heterogeneous distributions, indicating that computer technology use has a small but positive impact on student achievement, and the authors discuss implications and future research.

Abstract

This research study employs a second-order meta-analysis procedure to summarize 40 years of research activity addressing the question, does computer technology use affect student achievement in formal face-to-face classrooms as compared to classrooms that do not use technology? A study-level meta-analytic validation was also conducted for purposes of comparison. An extensive literature search and a systematic review process resulted in the inclusion of 25 meta-analyses with minimal overlap in primary literature, encompassing 1,055 primary studies. The random effects mean effect size of 0.35 was significantly different from zero. The distribution was heterogeneous under the fixed effects model. To validate the second-order meta-analysis, 574 individual independent effect sizes were extracted from 13 out of the 25 meta-analyses. The mean effect size was 0.33 under the random effects model, and the distribution was heterogeneous. Insights about the state of the field, implications for technology use, and prospects for future research are discussed.