Schooling and Covid-19: lessons from recent research on EdTech

Area of Science:

• Education
• Educational Technology
• Comparative Education

Background:

• The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a global shift to remote learning.
• Educational technology (EdTech) emerged as a key tool for remote instruction.
• Limited evidence exists on EdTech's impact on academic outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of EdTech as a substitute for traditional schooling.
• To compare EdTech outcomes against traditional methods in primary education.
• To assess the extent to which EdTech can replace in-person instruction.

Main Methods:

• Conducted two large-scale randomized experiments with approximately 10,000 primary school students.
• Experiments were carried out in China and Russia.
• Compared EdTech interventions with paper-and-pencil workbook exercises of identical content.

Main Results:

• In China, EdTech proved to be a perfect substitute for traditional learning methods.
• In Russia, EdTech substituted traditional learning only to a limited extent.
• Findings indicate significant variability in EdTech effectiveness across different contexts.

Conclusions:

• EdTech's efficacy as a full substitute for traditional schooling is context-dependent.
• Careful consideration is required when implementing EdTech for widespread remote instruction.
• Further research is needed to understand factors influencing EdTech's impact on academic outcomes.