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Pupils 'do worse with computers'

Robert Booth Monday March 21, 2005 The Guardian

Academics will today argue that the growing use of computers in secondary school clbuttrooms and for homework could be leading to worsening performance in literacy, science and maths.

An international study of about 100,000 15-year-olds in 32 different developed and developing countries suggests that the drive to equip an increasing number of schoolchildren in the UK with computers may be misplaced.

In a report to be given at the conference of the Royal Economic Society in Nottingham this week, Thomas Fuchs and Ludger Woessmann of Munich University say the research shows diminished performance in students with computers.

"Holding other family characteristics constant, students perform significantly worse if they have computers at home," it says.

"This may reflect the fact that computers at home may actually distract students from learning, both because learning with computers may not be the most efficient way of learning and because computers can be used for other aims than learning."

But if computers don't help then plenty of books at home do. The authors of the report found that "students with more than 500 books in their homes performed better in maths and science than those with none".

The information was collected under the Programme for International Student buttessment in 2000, but the new analysis appears to contradict parts of the government's policy on information and communications technology in clbuttrooms.

The so-called Labour party in Britain has pushed a policy of "personalised learning" with computers, and children as young as eight now have access to laptop computers.

Last week the chancellor, Gordon Brown, announced an extra £50m for information technology in schools - including moves to let pupils take computers home on "low cost" leases.

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