Measuring <scp>ICT</scp> Use and Learning Outcomes: evidence from recent econometric studies

TLDR

The study uses PISA 2009 data from 23 countries to examine how students’ computer use relates to their reading, mathematics, and science achievement. Computer use was classified into skill‑based activity categories, and the authors correlated students’ PISA scores with both the intensity of use for each activity and the total number of activities performed. Scores rose with gaming‑intensity but fell with intensity of school‑related activities, yet the breadth of activities performed was positively linked to proficiency across all three domains in most countries.

Abstract

Based on PISA 2009 data, this article studies the relationship between students’ computer use and their achievement in reading, mathematics and science in 23 countries. After having categorised computer use into a set of different activities according to the skills they involve, we correlate students’ PISA test‐scores with an index capturing the intensity of use for each of these activities and with the total number of activities they perform. Overall, we find that students’ PISA test scores in reading, mathematics and science increase with the intensity of computer use for Gaming activities while they decrease with the intensity of computer use for activities that are more related with school curricula (i.e. C ommunication and C ollaboration activities; T echnical O perations/ I nfo R etrieval activities; Creation of Content and Knowledge Problem Solving activities). However, the number of activities (and hence the diversification of activities), irrespective of the intensity of computer use, is positively correlated with students’ proficiency in all three PISA domains in the vast majority of countries, indicating that computers breadth of use, as opposed to intensity of use in a given activity, has some positive effect on students’ PISA test scores.