Technology and Quality of Education for Low -Income and Minority Students: Issues and *Policy Implication

Abstract

90 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2002.Descriptive statistics of the groups were used alongside multiple regressions in order to analyze group differences as well as the interactions of differing variables and their impact on students' achievement. The findings suggest that, with other relevant conditions constant: (a) disadvantaged students did not lag far behind their peers in computer use at school, but they were much less likely to use computers at home; (b) computer use at home was far more significant than computer use at school in relation to high academic performance; (c) using a computer at school seemed to have dubious effects on learning---taking computer science courses at school related consistently to low performance for both the disadvantaged and their peers; (d) disadvantaged students benefited less than other students from computer use, including computer use at home; and (e) compared to their peers, disadvantaged students' academic performance seemed less predictable by computer use and other predictor variables. The findings of this study present clear evidence linking SES factors, availability of computer technology, and student performance. In short, when discussing "equity" in terms of educational use of computers, it is important not only to consider access, but also the individual learning needs of students.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD