Digital Inclusion and Academic Performance

Abstract

As ICT continues to change the educational landscape in ways beyond many of our imaginations, how digital inclusion affects adolescent students’ learning and their academic achievement have also become an important topic for scholars. Using 2018 PISA data, this chapter examines the effects of ICT use at home and in school on adolescents’ reading performance, with a focus on 21 developed countries and societies. Results from multilevel regression analyses suggest that: (1) ICT use in school has no positive effects on students’ reading achievement in most developed countries. In a small number of countries (e.g., Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Scandinavian nations), a moderate level of school ICT use has positive effects on reading, but the effects become negative when students use ICT in school at a high level. When school ICT use shows positive effects, the effects on low-SES students are often greater than the effects on high-SES students, especially when they are using ICT for core subjects in school. (2) Inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationships between ICT use at home and reading performance are apparent in most countries. These curvilinear effects suggest that a moderate level of home ICT use would help improve adolescents’ reading performance. As ICT use at home increases, however, its positive effect diminishes, and may have negative impacts on academic achievement if students use ICT at home at a high level. Taken together, these findings suggest that the relationships between adolescents’ ICT use and academic achievement vary both across countries and by students’ socioeconomic background within countries.