Stephen Bowen: Linking laptop use to improved writing may be a stretch
Bangor Daily News, November 3, 2007
(excerpt) The report begins, for instance, by analyzing what it calls "self-reporting" data, which means that analysts used survey instruments to ask students and teachers if they thought the laptops had made the students into better writers.
The report’s own data suggest they are not so sure. Only half of the students surveyed said they "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that they "do more work with the laptops" or that the "quality of [their] work has improved" since using laptops, and less than 40 percent "agreed" or "strongly agreed" they were "better able to understand their school work" when using laptops.
Teachers tended to agree with them. Only half "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that the quality of student work "increases when we use laptops," and about 30 percent, less than a third, "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that "students are better able to understand when we use laptops." Fully a quarter of the teachers disagreed entirely with that statement.
The report goes on to suggest that data from the eighth-grade Maine Educational Assessment test prove the laptops have had a positive effect on the writing skills of students. The report’s authors looked at MEA testing data from 2000, before laptops were implemented, and then from 2005, after the program had been in place for a couple of years. They report that the state average score on the eighth-grade MEA writing test grew from 534.1 to 536.5 over that period, and that the percent of students rated "proficient" in their writing on the exams rose from 29 percent to 41 percent. It sounds like a lot of progress, and it is, but are the laptops responsible?
(excerpt) The report begins, for instance, by analyzing what it calls "self-reporting" data, which means that analysts used survey instruments to ask students and teachers if they thought the laptops had made the students into better writers.
The report’s own data suggest they are not so sure. Only half of the students surveyed said they "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that they "do more work with the laptops" or that the "quality of [their] work has improved" since using laptops, and less than 40 percent "agreed" or "strongly agreed" they were "better able to understand their school work" when using laptops.
Teachers tended to agree with them. Only half "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that the quality of student work "increases when we use laptops," and about 30 percent, less than a third, "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that "students are better able to understand when we use laptops." Fully a quarter of the teachers disagreed entirely with that statement.
The report goes on to suggest that data from the eighth-grade Maine Educational Assessment test prove the laptops have had a positive effect on the writing skills of students. The report’s authors looked at MEA testing data from 2000, before laptops were implemented, and then from 2005, after the program had been in place for a couple of years. They report that the state average score on the eighth-grade MEA writing test grew from 534.1 to 536.5 over that period, and that the percent of students rated "proficient" in their writing on the exams rose from 29 percent to 41 percent. It sounds like a lot of progress, and it is, but are the laptops responsible?
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