A laptop for every child? The impact of ICT on educational outcomes

Caroline Hall, Martin Lundin () and Kristina Sibbmark ()
Additional contact information
Martin Lundin: IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, Postal: Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, P O Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
Kristina Sibbmark: IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, Postal: Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, P O Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden

No 2019:26, Working Paper Series from IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy

Abstract: Classrooms all over the world are becoming increasingly technologically advanced. Many schools today provide a personal laptop or tablet to each pupil for use both in the classroom and at home. The intent of these 1:1 programs is that information and communication technology (ICT) should be extensively involved in the teaching of all subjects. We investigate how pupils who are given a personal laptop or tablet, rather than having more limited computer access, are affected in terms of educational performance. By surveying schools in 26 Swedish municipalities regarding the implementation of 1:1 programs and combining this information with administrative data, we estimate the impact on educational outcomes using a difference-in-differences design. We find no significant impact on standardized tests in mathematics or language on average, nor do we find an impact on the probability of being admitted to upper secondary school or the students’ choice of educational track. However, our results indicate that 1:1 initiatives may increase inequality in education by worsening math skills and decreasing enrollment in college-preparatory programs in upper secondary school among students with lower educated parents.

Keywords: technology; computers; one-to-one; student performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 49 pages
Date: 2019-11-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-ict and nep-lam
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ifau.se/globalassets/pdf/se/2019/wp-20 ... ational-outcomes.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2019_026

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper Series from IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy IFAU, P O Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ali Ghooloo ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).