It ain't the digital divide
2010-07-13 14:56:01.844893+00 by Dan Lyke 0 comments
New York Times: Computers at Home: Educational Hope vs. Teenage Reality, Slate: The $100 Distraction Device: Why giving poor kids laptops doesn't improve their scholastic performance are articles about Home Computer Use and the Development of Human Capital (PDF) by Ofer Malamud and Cristian Pop-Eleches (The Effect of Computer Use on Child Outcomes looks closely linked).
Children in Romania who won a voucher for a free computer, and therefore were more likely to have a computer in their home
... had signicantly lower school grades in Math, English and Romanian but signicantly higher scores in a test of computer skills and in self-reported measures of computer fluency. There is also evidence that winning a voucher increased cognitive ability, as measured by Raven’; Progressive Matrices. We do not finnd much evidence for an effect on non-cognitive outcomes. Finally, the presence of parental rules regarding computer use and homework appear to mitigate the effects of computer ownership, suggesting that parental monitoring and supervision may be important mediating factors.
The New York Times article also draws from Scaling the Digital Divide by Jacob L. Vigdor and Helen F. Ladd, which looked at data from North Carolina. The NY Times says:
... Students posted significantly lower math test scores after the first broadband service provider showed up in their neighborhood. ...