Review of a scholarly paper on the effectiveness of technology in learning.

Reference:

A Multi-level, Longitudinal Approach to Evaluating the Effectiveness of Educational Technology

Review/Summary

The article A Multi-Level, Longitudal Approach to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Educational Technology written by R.W. Rumberger describes the benefits of short term and long term studies, qualitative and quantitative studies, and muli-level studies.  The study provides many ways to evaluate the effectiveness of educational technology based on studies that have been used.  The study looks at educational technology to impact learning at the school, classroom, and student individually.  Additionally, the paper discusses randomization experiments, large-scale surveys, and mixed-method which includes qualitative and quantitative analysis.  The study goes on to discuss how technology alters how teachers instruct and how students interact.  Adding the fact that these variables will have to be studied to identify the effectiveness of the educational technology to measure what is being changed. This article offers a model to follow to measure the effectiveness of educational technology. 

Reflection:

This article offers a way to study the effectiveness of educational technology in schools.  I like the way it describes various types of research and describes how each would vary in results and then makes a suggestion on what should be used.  Reading this article helps me to learn how research methods are considered in a research project and how to identify a better method over another.  I like this article because Effectiveness is a big issue in school district.  If a study can be done to show gains then costs of technology can be justified for a long term investment.