Technology in Education

A Meta-Analysis of the Effectiveness of Teaching and Learning With Technology on Student Outcomes

Abstract

To estimate the effects of teaching and learning with technology on students' cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes of learning, 282 effect sizes were calculated using statistical data from 42 studies that contained a combined sample of approximately 7,000 students. The mean of the study-weighted effect sizes averaging across all outcomes was .410 (p < .001), with a 95-percent confidence interval (CI) of .175 to .644. This result indicates that teaching and learning with technology has a small, positive, significant (p < .001) effect on student outcomes when compared to traditional instruction. The mean study-weighted effect size for the 29 studies containing cognitive outcomes was .448, and the mean study-weighted effect size for the 10 comparisons that focused on student affective outcomes was .464. On the other hand, the mean study-weighted effect size for the 3 studies that contained behavioral outcomes was -.091, indicating that technology had a small, negative effect on students' behavioral outcomes. The overall study-weighted effects were constant across the categories of study characteristics, quality of study indicators, technology characteristics, and instructional/teaching characteristics.

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