Early multiple regression analysis of high school sciences examination data: Assessing the impact of laptop use on student performance

Abstract

The Australian Digital Education Revolution in secondary schools ran from 2008 to 2012. Year 9 students in ‘Round 1’ schools, within the Catholic Education Office Sydney, each received a laptop from 2008. This was repeated for Year 9 students in ‘Round 2’ schools from 2009. Consequently, for the Higher School Certificate (HSC) examinations in 2011, students from Round 1 schools had been schooled for over three years with 1:1 laptops whereas the students from Round 2 schools had received traditional schooling. This unique dichotomous scenario is the context of this study, which builds upon prior research into the impact of 1:1 laptops and the Digital Education Revolution on teaching and learning in science (Crook, Sharma Wilson & Muller 2013; Crook & Sharma in press). This study reports on the preliminary multiple regression analysis of 521 students within subject using HSC examination result as the dependent variable and School Certificate result, gender, socio-economic status, science subject, teachers variables, student variables and schooling by laptop as independent variables. The early findings are interesting and perhaps controversial.