Thesis advisor: Michael K. Russell / Over the past few decades, and especially in the past ten years, computer use in schools has increased dramatically; however there has been little research examining the effects of technology use on student achievement, specifically defined by standardized test scores. There is also concern as to how technology use differs by gender and if that distinction may lead to differences in student achievement by gender. This study attempts to untangle the relationship between technology use, gender, and test scores. Specifically the study examines differences in computer use between boys and girls, which computer uses are predictors of English language arts and mathematics standardized test scores, and how gender interacts with these predictors. The sample for this study comes from the Berkshire Wireless Learning Initiative evaluation, which examined the use of technology at three one-to-one laptop schools and two comparison schools in western Massachusetts. This evaluation used online surveys to collect information about technology use and MCAS scores to measure student achievement. A series of regression analyses were employed to determine the relationship between these uses and MCAS scores. Findings from this study suggest that there are no significant differences in technology use between girls and boys. Additionally, there are only small relationships between technology use and achievement, but these relationships are stronger for boys than for girls. Finally, this study discovered that socioeconomic status did not significantly predict English language arts test scores for students at the laptop schools, but did significantly predict scores for students at the comparison schools. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Research, Measurement, and Evaluation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BOSTON/oai:dlib.bc.edu:bc-ir_101385 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Kay, Rachel E. |
| Publisher | Boston College |
| Source Sets | Boston College |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, thesis |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf |
| Rights | Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. |
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