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Contextualized-OLPC education project in rural India: measuring learning impact and mediation of computer self-efficacy

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Abstract

The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative has been at the forefront of introducing low-cost computers in developing countries. We argue that the problem is not as much as a focus on the provision of affordable technologies, but the lack of consideration of deeply contextualized implementation design and the lack of understanding of psychological mechanisms at the user-level that influence learning impact. A longitudinal quasi-experimental design among nine rural Indian primary schools involved pre- and post- experiment measures conducted with both test (n = 126) and control groups (n = 79). The study objective was to prioritize local contexts during technology implementation design in order to attain educational impact in terms of improved learning outcomes for students. The Contextualized-OLPC education project utilized strategies identified by the Technology-Community-Management model to address contextually germane factors of teacher training, unbiased gender access, and local language use. A second objective was to assess impact of technology introduction while countering extant techno-determinist approaches of impact assessment. We first demonstrated that technological knowledge was associated positively with functional literacy. We situated the experiment in the social cognitive theory to demonstrate that computer self-efficacy mediates the relationship between technological literacy attained as a consequence of the Contextualized-OLPC education project and a specific learning outcome, functional literacy. Overall, the research illustrated that giving primacy to mere deployment of OLPC laptops has limited relevance to children, both in use and outcome. In support, the results demonstrated the role of contextualized technology in rural classrooms alongside an understanding of user psychology that influence learning impact.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the local team from Unified Development and Academic Activities Network (UDAAN) Foundation. We are especially thankful to UDAAN’s Founder and Chairperson, Dr. Veena Sethi, for her tremendous support to make this ICTD research study in India possible. We also wish to thank OLPC India for its support. This work was supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) under the SIRCA Grant administered by the Singapore Internet Research Centre (SiRC).

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  1. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA

    Komathi Ale

  2. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Yvonne Ai-Chi Loh & Arul Chib

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  1. Komathi Ale
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Correspondence to Arul Chib.

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Appendices

Appendix A

See Figures 1, 2, and 3

Fig. 1
figure 1

The Technology–Community–Management (TCM) model

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Fig. 2
figure 2

C-OLPC Project implementation. Images have been edited to maintain subject anonymity

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Fig. 3
figure 3

Summary of hypothesis testing results of the mediation effects

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Appendix B

See Tables 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5

Table 1 Pre-test technological literacy levels between groups
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Table 2 Pre-test functional literacy levels between groups
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Table 3 Change in technological literacy between groups
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Table 4 Change in functional literacy between groups
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Table 5 Coefficients of regression
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Ale, K., Loh, Y.AC. & Chib, A. Contextualized-OLPC education project in rural India: measuring learning impact and mediation of computer self-efficacy. Education Tech Research Dev 65, 769–794 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-017-9517-2

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