In recent years, there has been widespread excitement around the potential for technology to transform learning. As investments in education technology continue to grow, students, parents, and teachers face a seemingly endless array of education technologies from which to choosefrom digital personalized learning platforms to educational games to online courses. Amidst the excitement, it is important to step back and understand how technology can help-or in some cases hinder-how students learn. This review paper synthesizes and discusses experimental evidence on the effectiveness of technology-based approaches in education and outlines areas for future inquiry. In particular, we examine RCTs across the following categories of education technology: (1) access to technology, (2) computer-assisted learning, (3) technology-enabled behavioral interventions in education, and (4) online learning. While this review focuses on literature from developed countries, it also draws upon extensive research from developing countries. We hope this literature review will advance the knowledge base of how technology can be used to support education, outline key areas for new experimental research, and help drive improvements to the policies, programs, and structures that contribute to successful teaching and learning.

BackgroundDevelopment policymakers and child-care service providers are committed to improving the educational opportunities of the 153 million orphans worldwide. Nevertheless, the relationship between orphanhood and education outcomes is not well understood. Varying factors associated with differential educational attainment leave policymakers uncertain where to intervene. This study examines the relationship between psychosocial well-being and cognitive development in a cohort of orphans and abandoned children (OAC) relative to non-OAC in five low and middle income countries (LMICs) to understand better what factors are associated with success in learning for these children.MethodsPositive Outcomes for Orphans (POFO) is a longitudinal study, following a cohort of single and double OAC in institutional and community-based settings in five LMICs in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa: Cambodia, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, and Tanzania. Employing two-stage random sampling survey methodology to identify representative samples of OAC in six sites, the POFO study aimed to better understand factors associated with child well-being. Using cross-sectional and child-level fixed effects regression analyses on 1,480 community based OAC and a comparison sample of non-OAC, this manuscript examines associations between emotional difficulties, cognitive development, and a variety of possible co-factors, including potentially traumatic events.ResultsThe most salient finding is that increases in emotional difficulties are associated with lags in cognitive development for two separate measures of learning within and across multiple study sites. Exposure to potentially traumatic events, male gender, and lower socio-economic status are associated with more reported emotional difficultiesin some sites. Being female and having an illiterate caregiver is associated with lower performance on cognitive development tests in some sites, while greater wealth is associated with higher performance. There is no significant association between orphan status per se and cognitive development, though the negative and significant association between higher emotional difficulties and lags in cognitive development hold across all orphan subgroups.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that interventions targeting psychosocial support for vulnerable children, especially vis a vis traumatic experiences, may ease strains inhibiting a child’s learning. Family based interventions to stabilize socioeconomic conditions may help overcome psychosocial challenges that otherwise would present as barriers to the child’s learning.

In recent years, there has been widespread interest around the potential for technology to transform learning. As investment in education technology continues to grow, students, parents, and teachers face a seemingly endless array of education technologies from which to choose—from digital personalized learning platforms to online courses to text message reminders to submit financial aid forms. Amid the excitement, it is important to step back and understand how technology can help—or in some cases hinder—learning. This review article synthesizes and discusses rigorous evidence on the effectiveness of technology-based approaches to education in developed countries and outlines areas for future inquiry. In particular, we examine randomized controlled trials and regression discontinuity studies across the following categories of education technology: (i) access to technology, (ii) computer-assisted learning, (iii) technology-enabled behavioral interventions in education, and (iv) online learning. We hope this synthesis will advance academic understanding of how technology can improve education, outline key areas for new experimental research, and help drive improvements to the policies, programs, and structures that contribute to successful teaching and learning. (JEL H52, H75, I20, O33)

Research use in educational decision-making has been encouraged and well documented at the K-12 education level in the United States but not in higher education, or more specifically for educational technology. We conducted a qualitative study to investigate the role of research in decisions about acquiring and using educational technology for teaching and learning in higher education. Results from 45 interviews of decision-makers in higher education show that they engage in different types of research activities throughout the decision-making process, but that in most cases the research is lacking in methodological rigor. Externally-produced, scientifically-rigorous research was mentioned in less than 20% of interviews. Decision-makers often conduct their own internal investigations on educational technology products and strategies producing locally-relevant, but usually less-than rigorous, evidence to inform decisions about continuing use of the technology or scaling up.