The E ects of Technology on Students’ Academic Performance

Norwegian School of Economics Bergen, Autumn 2017

The Eects of Technology on Students' Academic Performance

Rollout of Individual Laptops in Norwegian Upper Secondary Schools

Stine Victoria Stakkestad & Guro Fladvad St?rdal Supervisors: Patrick Dylan Bennett & Aline Bu?tikofer

Master Thesis, Economics

NORWEGIAN SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

This thesis was written as a part of the Master of Science in Economics and Business Administration at NHH. Please note that neither the institution nor the examiners are responsible - through the approval of this thesis - for the theories and methods used, or

results and conclusions drawn in this work.

Acknowledgements

This thesis is written at the Norwegian School of Economics as a part of our Master in Economics. It has been rewarding and motivating to study a topic of great importance in today's society. The close teamwork has been a joyful and highly valuable experience.

We would like to thank our supervisors Patrick Dylan Bennett and Aline Bu?tikofer for the useful feedback and engagement throughout this master thesis. We are grateful for the opportunity to work with such inspirational and dedicated researchers. Furthermore, we would like to thank contributors from the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, Statistics Norway, as well as County Authorities and Upper Secondary Schools throughout Norway.

Bergen, December 2017

Stine Victoria Stakkestad

Guro Fladvad St?rdal

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Abstract

Dierent technologies have been implemented in the educational system in Norway over the last decade and it has been a subject of debate whether the use of technology enhances students' educational outcomes. The aim of this master thesis is therefore to analyze the causal eect of the one-to-one laptop program in upper secondary education in Norway on the performance in three common core subjects: first-choice form of Norwegian, second-choice form of Norwegian, and English. The analysis is performed on a sample of 289 upper secondary schools in the time period from 2003 to 2016. We exploit data on average grades at school level and the rollout of the one-to-one laptop program across the country by using a generalized dierence-in-dierence approach and an event study specification. The results of this study indicate no clear benefits of technology use on academic performance in upper secondary education as no statistically significant eects are found. However, the true eect might be attenuated as the impact of laptops on students' academic performance is complex, i.e. there are both positive and negative eects, and performance is only reported as an average at school level. The results presented in this thesis can be an important contribution to the literature in this field as little research has been conducted in Norway to interpret the causal relationship between technology and educational outcomes. The findings can hopefully inspire future research in the field to increase the knowledge on technology-led education. Moreover, it may also function as input for future decision making in the Norwegian educational system.

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Table of Contents

1 Introduction

1

1.1 Purpose and Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.2 Research Question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

2 Background

4

2.1 Norwegian Upper Secondary Educational System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2.2 Technology in the Educational System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.2.1 Implementation of Laptops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

3 Literature Review

7

3.1 Eect of General ICT in Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

3.2 Eect of Laptop Programs in School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

3.3 Summary of Existing Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

4 Data Description

10

4.1 Data on Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

4.2 Data on Academic Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

4.3 Data on Treatment Year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

4.4 Data on Control Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

4.5 Descriptive Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

5 Empirical Approach

19

5.1 Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

5.2 Event Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

5.3 Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

6 Empirical Analysis

24

6.1 Main Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

6.1.1 Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

6.1.2 Event Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

6.2 Sensitivity Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

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