IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ipt/iptwpa/jrc106999.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Digital technologies and learning outcomes of students from low socio-economic background: An Analysis of PISA 2015

Author

Abstract

The use of digital technologies for learning is high on the policy agenda and is believed to benefit disadvantaged groups of students especially. This study assesses the extent to which the association between learning outcomes and the use of digital technologies differs systematically between students with different socio-economic statuses. We start by summarizing the existing evidence on the causal effects of digital technologies on learning outcomes. We highlight the relative lack of evidence on the pedagogical use of digital technologies on disadvantaged students when compared to the general student population. The overall consensus emerging from the literature is that the causal effect of digital technologies is mixed. While it is unclear whether disadvantaged students are differently affected by them, the available evidence does not suggest that digital technologies contribute to further disparities in students' learning outcomes. Using data from PISA 2015, we document that students from low socio-economic backgrounds start using digital devices later in life, have slightly less access to ICT at home and tend to use ICT less intensively especially in out-of-school activities than their counterparts. In the multivariate analysis, we find a positive association between disadvantaged students' achievement and the use of ICT for some purposes, but only among those students who use ICT less intensively. However, we find no evidence that this association is systematically different from that of students from higher socio-economic backgrounds. The exception is the use of ICT outside of school for general purposes by low-intensity users: in this case, disadvantaged students would particularly benefit from using ICT more intensively. Furthermore, we also find that - among low-intensity users of ICT - the probability of being a resilient student is positively correlated with the use of ICT at school for educational purposes and at home for schoolwork and general purposes. More generally, our research suggests that low-intensity users of ICT are likely to be using ICT sub-optimally, both at home and at school, and would benefit (in terms of PISA scores) from using ICT more intensively. However, the fact that medium and high-intensity users of ICT typically would not gain from additional ICT use is consistent with the hypothesis that the relationship between use of ICT and learning outcomes is inversely U-shaped.

Suggested Citation

  • Margarida Rodrigues & Federico Biagi, 2017. "Digital technologies and learning outcomes of students from low socio-economic background: An Analysis of PISA 2015," JRC Research Reports JRC106999, Joint Research Centre.
  • Handle: RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc106999
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC106999
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rosangela Bando & Francisco Gallego & Paul Gertler & Dario Romero Fonseca, 2016. "Books or Laptops? The Cost-Effectiveness of Shifting from Printed to Digital Delivery of Educational Content," Documentos de Trabajo 474, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
    2. Stefania Bocconi & Augusto Chioccariello & Giuliana Dettori & Anusca Ferrari & Katja Engelhardt, 2016. "Developing Computational Thinking in Compulsory Education - Implications for policy and practice," JRC Research Reports JRC104188, Joint Research Centre.
    3. BOCCONI Stefania & CHIOCCARIELLO Augusto & KAMPYLIS Panagiotis & DAGIENĖ Valentina & WASTIAU Patricia & ENGELHARDT Katja & EARP Jeffrey & HORVATH Milena Anna & JASUTĖ Eglė & MALAGOLI Chiara & MASIULIO, 2022. "Reviewing Computational Thinking in Compulsory Education," JRC Research Reports JRC128347, Joint Research Centre.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Agasisti, Tommaso & Antequera, Germán & Delprato, Marcos, 2023. "Technological resources, ICT use and schools efficiency in Latin America – Insights from OECD PISA 2018," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yen-Cheng Chen & Pei-Ling Tsui & Ching-Sung Lee, 2021. "Is Mathematics Required for Cooking? An Interdisciplinary Approach to Integrating Computational Thinking in a Culinary and Restaurant Management Course," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(18), pages 1-16, September.
    2. Ľubomíra Valovičová & Ján Ondruška & Ľubomír Zelenický & Vlastimil Chytrý & Janka Medová, 2020. "Enhancing Computational Thinking through Interdisciplinary STEAM Activities Using Tablets," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(12), pages 1-15, November.
    3. Henriksen, Alexandre Lauri & Zoghbi, Ana Carolina & Tannuri-Pianto, Maria & Terra, Rafael, 2022. "Education outcomes of broadband expansion in Brazilian municipalities," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    4. World Bank, 2019. "Children Learning to Code," World Bank Publications - Reports 31528, The World Bank Group.
    5. Gregor Milicic & Sina Wetzel & Matthias Ludwig, 2020. "Generic Tasks for Algorithms," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-16, September.
    6. Ramón García-Perales & Ascensión Palomares-Ruiz, 2020. "Education in Programming and Mathematical Learning: Functionality of a Programming Language in Educational Processes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-15, December.
    7. Michal Fojtík & Martin Cápay & Janka Medová & Ľubomíra Valovičová, 2023. "Activities with BBC micro:bit as a Foundation for Statistical Reasoning of Lower-Secondary Students," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(14), pages 1-16, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Digital technologies; Low socio-economic status; Students' Achievement; PISA;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • I29 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Other

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc106999. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Publication Officer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ipjrces.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.