Toxic Computers?

NEA Today, Mar 2005

THEY MAY BE STANDARD FARE in homes and schools, but computers may not be helping students learn. In fact, they could be hurting kids-or so concludes a sophisticated study by researchers at the University of Munich in Germany.

Thomas Fuchs and Ludger Woessmann used a major math and reading survey called the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), involving 15-year-olds from 32 countries. At first blush, PISA seemed to show that computers at home help: Students from homes with computers scored higher than those who were computerless. But the researchers reasoned that families with computers were probably better off in many ways, and that could account for the higher scores. So they used statistical techniques to show the effect of computers on achievement when income and other family characteristics are equal. The result: Students with computers at home scored lower than comparable students without computers. Fuchs and Woessmann think the damage may be done by computer games. Among students who had computers, those with Internet access and e-mail did better than those without, perhaps because they spent more time on educational pursuits.

How about computer use in school? Controlling for other school and family characteristics, computers seemed to make little difference. Occasional users did slightly better than non-users, but frequent users did worse than either non-users or occasional users.

So, are computers harmful? Probably not. But you need to take care how, and how much, little Johnny uses them.