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Re: computers do more harm than good



I came across a summary of some of the material that I wrote for the laptop study, so I am sending this out. Most of the studies are not for the lower grades, but I think their conclusions can be extended to other levels of education. The bias in the conclusions is purely my own.

To address the question of whether laptops can improve the overall academic program in high school, I have examined some of the available references, and found a few more using the Eric database (http://ericir.syr.edu/) using the keyword "laptops". I would like to present my observations concerning some of these studies and articles.
The Rockman study commissioned by Microsoft is a massive 100 page document, which I skimmed. It compared laptop and non laptop students at a variety of schools. Most of their data came from surveys with one posttest being given. The posttest was considered invalid for most of the HS classes, and only a small part of that data was used. The study was poorly controlled, and the meaning and validity of the figure of merit for student gain can be questioned. It claims that students showed more higher level thinking skills as a result of the program. This conclusion can be questioned as there is no hard data to support it beyond a statistically poor posttest, and teacher observations. They did show a diminished effect for private school students. It should be noted that often students do better when teachers and researchers are paying special attention to their learning, but they usually drop back to average once the study is over. This is a sort of educational placebo effect. They claimed an i
crease in writing and communication skills. The one thing that can be firmly established is that both teachers and students liked the program. In addition the survey data showed that laptops facilitated changes in teaching styles to make them more in line with current recommendations. This means a reduction in lectures, and making the teacher more a coach than a presenter of received wisdom. This change is consistent with the results achieved by physics education research.

The "Evaluation of the Personal Laptop Program at Penrhos College" March 1999 study came to similar conclusions to the Rockman study. Like the Rockman study it had mainly qualitative data. It did not seem to show increased higher order thinking skills, but it did show greater peer instruction, student independence, and interaction with the material. This study is probably worth reading as it goes into reasonable depth within a reasonably sized report.
The ETS study "Does It Compute? The Relationship Between Educational Technology and Student Achievement in Mathematics " is worth reading. It uses rigorous testing. The following quote is a good summary of the findings "The results from this study suggest that, as technology advocates have asserted, technology does matter to academic achievement, with the important caveat that whether it matters depends upon how it is used. The level of use of computers seems not to matter, and extremely high levels of use may even be counterproductive. Possibly at such high levels students are using computers in unproductive ways, such as playing non-educational games. But when computers are used to perform certain tasks, namely applying higher order concepts, and when teachers are proficient enough in computer use to direct students toward productive uses more generally, computers do seem to be associated with significant gains in mathematics achievement, as well as an improved social environment in the school."

The Benton Foundation report, "The Learning Connection: Schools in the Information Age", has some useful observations about technology usage, and when it can improve student achievement. Their criticism of standardized tests is reasonable, but it ignores the research based tests that are now available in some fields. The quote "The Office of Technology Assessment found that most teacher-training programs at colleges make little use of technology. And it said that the typical approach to in-service teacher training--short courses on specific computer applications or other single topics--may be particularly ineffective in preparing teachers to use computer networking in their classrooms." Is in line with evidence from physics education research. Some of the most effective physics programs require many weeks of training to implement.
The ERIC searches yielded some papers that might be worth examining in detail. Only abstracts are available online, but many of these papers could be obtained in full text from the Univ. of St. Thomas, or the downtown public library. A brief survey yields the following in no particular order:

ED416847: Copernicus Project. Learning with Laptops: Year 1 Evaluation Report. It reports similar conclusions to the Rockman study. They reported improvements in writing skills, more independent projects, and a high degree of satisfaction. A minority of teachers and parents were highly dissatisfied. The degree of pre and post-testing is unknown.

ED397825: An Assessment of Retention and Depth of Processing Associate with Note taking Using Traditional Pencil and Paper and an On-line Notepad during Computer-Delivered Instruction. This study supports online note taking, using pre and posttests.

ED358822: Year One of Project Pulse: Pupils Using Laptops in Science and English: A Final Report. This showed a marked improvement in students' "ability to communicate persuasively, organize their ideas effectively, and use a broad vocabulary effectively" as measured on a "holistic measure of writing scores". The degree of pre-testing is unknown.

ED389134: The Use of Portable Computers with Dyslexic Students Occasional Papers 26. This study found substantial increases in note taking skills, attitudes toward work, attitudes toward spelling, writing skills, and keyboarding skills. Increased independence was also exhibited. The type of testing and conditions of the study are not known.

The article "ETS study shows how computers can help or hurt math achievement(eSchool News Online 10/5/98) showed that math skills can be impacted by computer usage. They found that certain special simulations could substantially improve students understanding of math, and improve test scores. There was a negative effect from heavy usage of drill and practice programs. The description of the simulations was fairly similar to programs that I am currently using in physics, and that have been shown to be highly effective in physics education.

The Atlantic Monthly article "The Computer Delusion" has some excellent observations. This article rightly points out that most evidence is from anecdotes and surveys, and few controlled experiments have actually been done. They also point out the value of good shop courses. While this may seem old fashioned, it is in line with my observations that students can not apply common sense to everyday measurement tasks. Their comments about the negative effects of simulations and games is in line with the evidence from physics education research that student gain is only achieved by using researched material in the hands of trained willing teachers.

The special report from Education Week "Technology Counts '98" echoes many of the previous articles. The hard data from ETS suggests that computers can be very influential, but the effect can be either good or bad depending on the usage. They also point out quite rightly that education research is an extremely small part of the curriculum development industry. This is in line with my observations that 99% of all available curriculum material has been designed to sell, and has not been tested for efficacy. A summary of this article may be this quote "What we do know for certain," he (Wenglinsky) says, "is that when teachers use the computer to teach higher-order thinking skills, students benefit."
Anyone who wishes to see what can be done using technology enhanced education should look at the TESSI project in Canada. Information is available at the following sites:

A paper on TESSI http://iccel.wfu.edu/publications/journals/jcel/jcel990305/jcel990305.htm
Views of teachers: http://www.sd38.bc.ca/schools/Palmer/TESSI, http://207.102.49.197, and http://home.paralynx.com/Gordon_Spann/

TESSI website: http://www.curricstudies.educ.ubc.ca/wprojects/TESSI
The TESSI project is being used to enhance physics, chemistry, and biology education. It shows success by preventing a large dropout rate between the junior year and senior year physics courses in BC high schools. The final provincial test shows a very slight drop for students in the senior year TESSI program. This is remarkable because one would expect a large drop due to the inclusion of more less able students. The director of the program said that pre and posttests have not been done.

There is agreement that computers can be valuable tools which can be used to improve education in ways that are difficult to achieve by other means. This often requires specialized curricula. There also seems to be agreement that computers facilitate changes in teaching methods toward more peer instruction and teachers serving as coaches. It is also possible to deliver more individualized instruction. There seems to be a dearth of rigorously controlled studies using pre and posttests. This is partially because the general usage of laptops is a fairly new phenomenon. There are indications of enthusiasm for laptop programs. If this means that students actually work harder, because they enjoy it more, then laptops can be a positive force.

At the end I would like to bring up a relevant subject which is dear to my heart, namely student cognitive ability. Most of my information on this subject comes from 2 sources. The first is the CASE study in England which is summarized in the paperback book "Really Raising Standards", and in the book "Science and the Development of thinking" by Anton Lawsen. The facts are that less than 25% of the students leaving high school exhibit any ability to do abstract reasoning. Both of these sources infer that the ability to do abstract reasoning can be developed by students. This has actually been done by programs both in the US and in England. This can be done both in the context of content based courses, and by separate programs called "cognitive intervention". Lawsen proposes general methods that can be used in content based instruction. Shayer and Adey currently have a long running project which is demonstrating a significant improvement in students' abilities. The CASE project is probably the
ost dramatic program in that many schools now have over 60% of exiting students capable of some abstract thinking, and grades in science, math, and English rise significantly. Their results are available at http://www.thenerve2.com/ca/ . This same program is being used in a high school district in Phoenix with good results. Http://guhsd.k12.az.us/ None of these methods use any particular technology. The amazing result is that many students can be taught to think! The one common point with laptop programs, is that the style of teaching necessary to increase cognitive skills is similar to the style that laptop programs seems to foster.