Computers and Student Learning: Interpreting the Multivariate Analysis of PISA 2000.

In November 2004, economists Thomas Fuchs and Ludger Woessmann published a statistical analysis of the relationship between technology and student achievement using year 2000 data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The 2000 PISA was the first in a series of triennial assessments of 15-year-olds conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The assessment included problems in reading, math, and science, as well as questions about student background, school characteristics, and information on the use of computers and the Internet at home and at school. Fuchs and Woessmann analyzed data from 31 countries: 96,855 students tested in math and 174,227 students tested in reading. (In these same countries 96,785 students were tested in science, but Fuchs and Woessmann chose to concentrate on math because of its relation to future job performance and its relative comparability across countries, and on reading because it had special emphasis in the 2000 PISA.) Initial analyses of PISA data in 2001 had indicated that there was a significant positive relationship between academic achievement and computer access. However, when Fuchs and Woessmann controlled for family-background characteristics using multivariate regressions, they found: