Study Overview
Information and communication technologies can be used for educational purposes, but these devices may also pose as distractors that may tamper with the learning process. This paper presents results from a randomized controlled trial in which laptops replaced traditional textbook provision in elementary schools in high poverty communities in Honduras. We show that at the end of one school year, we fail to reject that there were no differences between laptop and textbook provision on mathematics and Spanish test scores and in non-academic outcomes related to coding and verbal fluency.
Study Results
We find that at the end of the school year, treatment and control groups achieved similar gains as measured by mathematics and Spanish test scores and in non-academic tests related to coding and verbal fluency. The coding test aimed to measure processing speed and working memory. This implies that the provision of books or laptops did not cause differences in terms of student learning. Our results suggest this is true for third and sixth graders and for academic and non-academic outcomes.
Intervention: Replacing student textbooks with laptops