Research

What is the research telling us?

OK. Now for the good news. Research has shown that students involved in one-to-one laptop programs perform better in state-wide testing. Writing and numeracy are two of the areas that have been researched extensively.

In writing for example, research has shown that students participating in a one-to-one program use their laptops more often for composing, drafting and creating final written reports and have a greater probability of success in achieving proficiency in state-wide standards. Even though these tests are pencil and paper-based!

Students performed better the more they used their laptops in developing and producing their writing. Most importantly, they became better writers in general - not just better writers using laptops.

In relation to numeracy, the final results of research across 245 classrooms clearly indicated that students in laptop classrooms are performing significantly better that students in standard classrooms. (Centre for Education Policy, Applied Research and Evaluation)

There is a growing body of evidence indicating that one to one laptop initiatives are impacting teachers, students and learning in many positive ways. The major thrusts of the research indicate that:

Teachers are more effectively helping individual students with their learning and achieving the state-wide standards;

Students are more motivated to learn, are learning more and learning it more deeply;

Students are acquiring 21st Century Skills;

One-to-one laptop programs are bringing about a positive change in learning and the acquisition of knowledge.

What do teachers think?

From a longitudinal study involving approximately 5,000 teachers involved in a state-wide one-to-one laptop program most teachers believed that laptops helped them:

personalise curriculum to fit student needs;

access more up to date information;

better access diverse teaching and learning resources;

cover more material in class;

explore topics in greater depth with their students;

create learning materials which better meet state standards;

Teachers also indicated that one-to-one laptops facilitated student learning, allowing students to:

be more actively engaged in their learning;

do more work;

be more apt to revise/edit work;

get work done more efficiently;

become more organised;

gather, more easily, information from different sources;

express ideas more effectively;

better study real-life issues.