Home Computers and Child Outcomes: Short-Term Impacts from a Randomized Experiment in Peru

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The unauthorized commercial use of Bank documents is prohibited and may be punishable under the Bank's policies and/or applicable laws. Terms of use: Documents in Copyright ©Inter-American Development Bank. This working paper may be reproduced for any non-commercial purpose. It may also be reproduced in any academic journal indexed by the American Economic Association's EconLit, with previous consent by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), provided that the IDB is credited and that the author(s) receive no income from the publication. This paper presents results from a randomized control trial in which approximately 1,000 OLPC XO laptops were provided for home use to children attending primary schools in Lima, Peru. The intervention increased access and use of home computers, with some substitution away from computer use outside the home. Beneficiaries were more likely to complete domestic chores but less likely to read books. Treatment children scored almost one standard deviation higher in a test of XO proficiency, though there were no effects on objective and self-reported skills for using a Windows-based PC and Internet. There were positive impacts on the Raven's Progressive Matrices test among children who did not have a home computer before the intervention, but no significant effects for the sample as a whole. Finally, there was little evidence for spillovers within schools, although close friends and classmates of laptop recipients did exhibit higher proficiency with the XO computer. Cataloging-in-Publication JEL classifications: C93, I21, I28

Improving Learning in Primary Schools of Developing Countries

“…Berry (2012) compared two incentive treatments but did not include a pure control group. Banerjee, Banerji, Duflo, Glennerster, and Khemani (2010) report results for binary indicators of learning outcomes, whereas the outcome measures in several papers did not include language or mathematics (Beuermann, Cristia, Cruz-Aguayo, Cueto, & Malamud, 2012;Clarke et al, 2008;Kvalsvig, Cooppan, & Connolly, 1991;Lien et al, 2009;Newman et al, 2002;Seshadri & Gopaldas, 1989).…”

Learn to Play and Play to Learn: Evaluation of the One Laptop per Child Program in Costa Rica

“…The authors explained that these outcomes resulted from the lack of teacher training, education resources and connectivity, which impeded the program's ability to achieve its potential for school performance. In another study regarding the same OLPC program in Peru, Beuermann et al () focused on the program's effects on the students who were able to take their computer home after class. Through the use of a randomized experiment, they found that the students who used the computers at home were more likely to perform home duties but less likely to spend time reading books.…”

Technology and Education

“…Bauernschuster, Falck and Woessmann (2014) use German data to examine the effects of broadband Internet access on children's extra-curricular school activities such as sports, music, arts, and drama and do not find evidence of crowd out. Finally, Beuermann et al (2012), using data from Peru's randomization across and within schools, do not find evidence of spillovers to classmates and friends (though close friends appear to become more proficient at using a laptop).…”

“…Fairlie and Robinson (2013) and Fairlie (2015) find no evidence of heterogeneous treatment effects by pre-treatment academic achievement, parental supervision, propensity for non-game use, grade, race, or gender. Beuermann et al (2012) find some evidence of a larger reduction in school effort for younger Peruvian children, but essentially no difference in effects on cognitive skills for younger children and no difference in effects on school effort and cognitive skills by gender. In their study of Romanian schoolchildren, Malumud and Pop-Eleches (2010) do not find evidence of differential effects by gender, but do find that younger children 42 experience larger gains in cognitive skills.…”

“…A couple of previous studies use random experiments to examine the impacts of one laptop per child (OLPC) laptops on educational outcomes in developing countries. 25 Beuermann et al (2012) examine the impacts of randomly providing approximately 1,000 laptops for home use to schoolchildren in grades 1 through 6 in Peru. 26 They find that the laptops have a positive, but small and insignificant effect on cognitive skills as measured by the Raven's Progressive Matrices test (though the effect is significant among children who did not already have a home computer before the experiment).…”