Exploring the Negative and Gap-Widening Effects of EdTech on Young Children’s Learning Achievement: Evidence from a Longitudinal Dataset of Children in American K–3 Classrooms

Abstract

Introducing educational technology (EdTech) into school classrooms constitutes one of the strongest educational reforms of recent decades worldwide, and as a discursive or ideological background of it, there has been the optimistic consensus on the use of EdTech among the global education community. In this context, this study highlights the dark side of EdTech and provides an opportunity for critical self-reflection of its current use through a series of quantitative analyses on a longitudinal dataset of children in K–3 American classrooms collected during the first half of the 2010s (ECLS-K:2011). In this process, two adverse effects of EdTech on young children’s learning achievement are identified: the negative effect and the gap-widening effect. These findings convey the crucial message that the education community’s approaches to EdTech should be more prudent than the current optimistic consensus. These findings do not lead us to any extreme or rigid conclusion such as techno-determinism or neo-Luddism, but rather call for a balanced and realistic deliberation on the benefits and risks of technology. This point is particularly worth clarifying in the recent situation, where schools’ dependence on EdTech has inevitably increased in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.