Information and communication technologies and academic performance in high school in Colombia

Abstract

This article studies the relationship between access to information and communication technologies (ICT) and academic performance measured at the individual and municipal level in the areas of Language, Mathematics and English in Colombia between 2014 and 2016 using the results of the Saber 11 tests. At the individual level, we estimate a quantile regression model, while at the municipality level, we perform a spatial analysis and estimate the causal effect by instrumental variables. Results suggest that, at the individual level, the correlation between access to ICT and academic performance varies according to the type of student and the area of knowledge. At the municipality level, we found that, at an increase of one unit in the proportion of students with a computer, the municipality's average academic performance increases by more than 5 standard deviations for language and mathematics and by more than 6 for English. The results suggest the need to execute policies that allow balancing the effect of ICT between students with low and high academic performance.